In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin in Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge

Aug 03, 2019 Jessica Sturges rated it really liked it

This was very interesting and I learned a lot about parts of our history that are not usually taught. The rise of Hitler as seen through the US Ambassador and his daughter. There were so many signs, but despite urges from our German ambassador, we ignored it until it was too late. Ambassador Dodd predicted many of the things that were to come after he was asked to leave his post. Learning that his daughter was a potential recruit to the Soviets and that she was also set up with Hitlerwere fascin ...more

Like · see review

Jun 30, 2017 CrystalIsReading on StoryGraph rated it liked it

Shelves: audio, library-audio, around-the-world-challenge, social-justice-issues, history-non-fiction

Well, I finally finished this book. I guess I should know from now on that when an author introduces a story by saying that there are no heroes, I should believe him. Because there were none. This was one of the most depressing things I've read in awhile. Just the gradual but inexorable slide of Germany into the clutches of Hitler and his henchmen. With only a stodgy professor and his...uh, polyamorous?...daughter standing against them. I didn't love Ambassador Dodd--every time he stood up for w Well, I finally finished this book. I guess I should know from now on that when an author introduces a story by saying that there are no heroes, I should believe him. Because there were none. This was one of the most depressing things I've read in awhile. Just the gradual but inexorable slide of Germany into the clutches of Hitler and his henchmen. With only a stodgy professor and his...uh, polyamorous?...daughter standing against them. I didn't love Ambassador Dodd--every time he stood up for what was right, and I cheered for him, he turned around and did something weak or foolish. As much as he campained against the Nazi government, it took him long enough to realize what was going on, and even then he spent so much precious time fighting against the good times club amongst his embassy in Berlin. he picked the wrong fights, so wasn't able to be fully effective/ have the support of the administration in such a bad time. but then again, the administration didn't seem to really care. America wanted to be isolationist, so pragmatic American politicians basically were. many of those good timing state department dilletantes were so anti-Semitic anyway that they didn't really care to stop what was going on.
And Dodd's daughter Martha....what a strange, flightly, immature, free-loving young woman. I could not like her even a little bit. I felt some concern for Boris, but then as more information came out, I found myself wondering even about him. This book truly had no heroes and little joy. It all made much more sense when I finished reading and read the author's source and acknowledgement at the end of the book. He was depressed by all that he found too. Because it was depressing, seeing with the hindsight of history the huge avalanche of death and destruction slowly creeping towards the point of no return. If the author was depressed by his research, I assume it's OK if I am too.
All that to say that I don't hate this book. It conveyed what it needed to of the complexity of the situation. How no one in power truly did all they could to try to avert the atrocities that kept increasing. I guess part of the reason this book was so incredibly depressing to me was the time in American history when I read it, a time when the idea of slowly shrinking civil liberties, amid rising and increasingly hostile and violent racism and xenophobia, is all too familiar. Seeing how things can turn out if the necessary interventions aren't made is really terrifying. So did I need this book right now? Probably. Would I recommend it to others? Yes, if they can handle the gloom of the story. Because as we know, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Knowledge of history and of that fact are what enabled Dodd to foresee what could come and to speak out against it eventually. Hopefully it will enable all who read this story to do the same if needed.

Also, the narrator was the same who read a Carl Hiassen book I'd listened to, and the change in subject material with the same narrator was so extreme it took me a little time to adjust to him. He's a good reader, and I liked him better reading this book than the Hiassen. but wow, what a difference. ...more

Like · see review

Nov 26, 2017 Astrid Lim rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, world-war, second-hand, europe, history

It's not as engaging as The Devil in the White City, because the historical facts are more packed and dry, taken from various letters and diary entries of the people involved. But the idea of writing something that was less known is pretty interesting and I appreciate Larson's efforts to make this book still enjoyable.

The years before World War II were not exposed that much, and the reasons of Hitler's ascent, seeing from different perspectives but mostly from the U.S. Ambassador in Berlin at th ...more

Like · see review