In the Garden of Beasts, by E. Larson

Well, I lied.  Here I am reviewing another nonfiction book.  Every once in a while, several books I have on hold at the local library become available at the same time, and I end up with a pile of books I have to finish reading in two weeks.  That’s what happened in this case.  Several nonfiction books I had on hold suddenly became available at the same time.  In the Garden of Beasts was one of these books, and it was very good.  I expected it to be good, since I had already read several good reviews. 

A quick summary:  William Dodd is appointed as the U.S. ambassador to Germany in the early 1930s.  He and his family move to Berlin.  At this point in time, Nazism is pretty big in Germany.  There have already been several attacks on Jews and occasionally on American citizens as well, for things such as failing to use the Nazi salute.  The book mostly focuses on Dodd and his daughter Martha, and how they both start to realize what is really going on in Germany.

Although I have read several WWII books (Unbroken being the latest one – amazing book!), this book provided a completely new perspective, one I hadn’t read about before: that of American citizens in Germany.  Also interesting about this book is that it focuses only on the years preceding and leading up to WWII.  I learned a little about the different Nazi officials and about politics in those days.  It was interesting to see how some people were able to quickly realize what was going on and to predict what would happen, and yet other people were in a way completely blind.  When reading other WWII books and the horrible things that took place, I often wondered how we could have let it happen, how we could have let people get away with these things and not stop them.  This book helped me better understand the political climate of the world at that point in history, and better understand why it took so long for the world to realize something had to be done.

The book did a great job of in a way being a history lesson, while at the same time keeping it personal and interesting, through the main characters of Dodd and Martha.  When looking at things through Dodd’s point of view, we saw more of the politics side of things.  When looking at things through Martha’s point of view, we are introduced to the people she interacted with and the men she dated – some of these men were highly ranked officials, and in many ways, very influential.

Overall, this was a great read!