Erik Larson's latest non-fiction is a beautiful piece of work that chronicles the family of William Dodd, American ambassador to Germany in Berlin during the time of the Nazi uprising to power. This book does a good job describing the infatuation people had the Nazi regime. It allows you to get an inside look at what it would have been like to live in Nazi Berlin.
It is hauntingly grasping to realize that people so easily closed their eyes to what the dictatorship truly was and how willing people were to hate others for the idea that they were a elite race. Media was censored and controlled to give the impression that Nazi was the right way and people bought it because it was the only option where they were given pride and confidence. In a post Great War depression, where Germany was left in shambles its people believed it was the only way. Hitler gave them something to believe in.
The beginning of the book allows you to see Germany though the eyes of the characters in the book itself and you see how easy it was to enjoy the opulence of the Nazi party, but as the book continues our characters little by little gain a true sense of what the Nazi truly was and how oppressive and violent they were. By the time the characters noticed along with many of the citizens, they were too terrorized by the violence around them to do anything about it.
History has not seen a more horrific time, but "In the Garden of Beasts" gives you an insight into how this could possibly have happened. A perfect storm; of citizens wanting to believe in themselves and doing anything to feel national pride, violent persecution of anything anti Nazi or Aryan, and manipulation of the media to create propaganda that closed the worlds eyes to the disgusting acts of the Nazi and their fuhrer, Adolf Hitler paved the way for the Nazi rise and the murders of millions.
It is excellent and a reminder to all of the dangers of an oppressive government that does not allow its people to ask questions and speak for themselves. Dangers that, in this book, seem scarily difficult to notice. This book is a must read, for anyone who enjoys history or human nature. Erik Larson, is a great author and has been given plenty of praise for "Devil in the White City", but should only get only more with "In the Garden of Beast".
