This is an oddly fascinating book. Erik Larsen knows how to take non-fiction and make it sing. In this book, he follows the career of the Dodds, who were posted to Berlin in 1934, as Hitler rose to power. Mr. Dodd was the somewhat unprepared American ambassador to Berlin, a staunchly moral man adrift in changing values, terrifying developments, and diplomatic dancing. His daughter, Martha Dodds, also had a significant effect on developments through these years, her affairs with Germans and Russians putting her father in difficult circumstances and jittering nerves throughout Europe.

This book describes a little known part of the turmoil around the start of WW2, and though, unfortunately, it seems to indicate that only the Americans had any power in the area to push back against Hitler (a common US arrogance), I found the description of the times fascinating, and Dodds an interesting and likeable character. ( )

A very good book (if a little dry). Very hard to read though. I learned a lot of history I was unaware of and most of it depressed me. I know it is easy to look back and ask, "how did the world let it happen?" but I still wonder. ( )

An engrossing account of life inside Germany before World War 2. ( )

Very scary account of Hitler's power grab in Nazi Germany. The picture of Nazi Germany painted by Larson made me sad that humanity could allow behavior like that to openly occur. It is also clearly a lesson to never allow political parties to arm themselves.
Dodds saw things before many of the other State Department officials. I was stunned that some U.S. government officials even entertained the idea of working with Nazi Germany.
I was also shocked by the behavior of his slutty daughter.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know what it would have been like to live in Nazi Germany as a U.S. citizen. ( )

Erik Larson has given us a beautifully written history of a terrifying prelude to an even more terrifying moment in time. Not only was this book impossible for me to put down, but it provided me with entirely new insights into Nazi Germany and the (non)action of the major Western powers during that period. Surprising to me were how willingly leaders and bureaucrats who could have acted, chose not to listen to people on the ground like Ambassador Dodd who kept insisting that not only were things bad, but that they were going to get much worse. Also surprising was my own naivete at how widespread anti-semitism still was in the U.S. at that point. Even Dodd, who after ending his ambassadorship spent the rest of his days on a tour circuit denouncing Nazi Germany's treatment of Jews and calling for the U.S. to intervene, was apparently sympathetic to the "Jewish" problem and felt that the U.S. had managed it well by ensuring that there were not too many Jewish people in leadership positions in any given institution. I appreciated Larson's very complete presentations of the individuals he was profiling, revealing all of their contradictions and personal strengths and limitations. ( )