Days of Our Years

by Pierre Van Paassen

This book was digitized and reprinted from the collections of the University of California Libraries. It was produced from digital images created through the libraries’ mass digitization efforts. The digital images were cleaned and prepared for printing through automated processes. Despite the cleaning process, occasional flaws may still be present that were part of the original work itself, or introduced during digitization. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found online in the HathiTrust Digital Library at www.hathitrust.org.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, World War II

296 pages

First published January 1, 1939

Reviews

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is at his best when Van Paassen is relating the stories that he has uncovered on his travels as a journalist traveling the world between the wars. When he starts to wax political though, he loses me a bit. Partly because contemporary politics don't hold up well nearly 70 years later, and partly because his specific prejudices come into play when he does that. Overall a fascinating book.

[Israa]

بإذن الله أقرؤه.
رشحه مالكوم إكس.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vividly well-written descriptions that sprawl into opinionated discourse. Van Paassen's observations from the 1920s and 1930s remain relevant to the shape of today's world.

[Mabel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was originally published in 1939. It stayed on the NY Times best seller list for 2 years. If you read it, you'll understand why. For one thing, I guarantee you will learn a lot about all sorts of things. Van Paassen was a journalist originally from Holland who eventually became a US citizen. He was present for almost every major event that took place in Europe between World War I and World War II. Not only was he there, he was an incisive historian who not only saw but understood what was happening around him. He was even put in Dachau concentration camp for several months, and no, he wasn't Jewish. He was a wonderful writer and a great storyteller with true empathy for his fellow human beings and it shows in his work.

I first read this book about 30 years ago and was very impressed with it at the time. I wanted to read it again but couldn't remember the author's name or the title. I did remember that he was Dutch and what the book was about, so I finally tracked it down and ordered it. It was even better than I remembered. I think that just about anybody who likes to read would enjoy this book. I can't recommend it too highly.

[Revjim1968]

Really damn good.