Book description
Berlin,1933. William E. Dodd, a mild-mannered academic from Chicago,
has to his own and everyone else's surprise, become America's first
ambassador to Hitler's Germany, in a year that proves to be a turning
point in history.
Dodd and his family, notably his vivacious daughter, Martha, observe
at first-hand the many changes - some subtle, some disturbing, and
some horrifically violent - that signal Hitler's consolidation of
power. Dodd has little choice but to associate with key figures in the
Nazi party, his increasingly concerned cables make little impact on an
indifferent U. S. State Department, while Martha is drawn to the Nazis
and their vision of a 'New Germany' and has a succession of affairs
with senior party players, including first chief of the Gestapo,
Rudolf Diels.
But as the year darkens, Dodd and his daughter find their lives
transformed and any last illusion they might have about Hitler are
shattered by the violence of the 'Night of the Long Knives' in the
summer of 1934 that established him as supreme dictator. Suffused with
the tense atmosphere of the times, and with brilliant portraits of
Hitler, Goebbels, Goering and Himmler amongst others, Erik Larson's
new book sheds unique light on events as they unfold, resulting in an
unforgettable, addictively readable work of narrative history.
Erik Larson is a prize-winning journalist and narrative historian.
His books include
Isaac's Storm
,
Thunderstruck
and the number one bestseller,
The Devil in the White City
, which won an Edgar Award and was shortlisted for the Crime Writers'
Association Gold Dagger Non-Fiction Award. He lives in Seattle.
