No. of Recommendations: 8
To be fair, most Americans are unaware of the details of the ascendance of the Third Reich.Sometime after TFGs 2016 ascendancy - in pursuit of what understanding I could glean, or what I think of as my WTF interval - I read Erik Larson's "In the Garden of Beasts (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Garden_of_Bea... ). It's the nonfiction account of FDR's first choice of US Ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, who had a front-row seat in Berlin from 1933 - 1937. (As well as the exploits of his, uh, adventurous daughter).
There's certainly an infinite amount to read on the topic, but this is my favorite to date for vividness and accessibility.
For me, there are too many similarities with the 1930s multiyear contest between a charismatic wannabe sociopathic tyrant and an
eminence grise (in that case, Hindenburg) to not have me see the historical rhyming with the 2024 election. The dwindling of anything like accommodation for one's opponents; the head-shaking or outright disbelief of the other Western nations; the steady diminishing of the sole 80-something year-old man who was seen as the bulwark between the lunatic and the realization of his goals.
We won't talk about the ascendant Far East nation with its progressive militarization and land grabs.
--sutton
