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What Members Thought
Larson is known for parallel historic stories. In this one he tackles the appointment of the American Ambassador to Berlin as Hitler is rising in power. The Ambassador moves his wife and two adult children to Berlin and mingle with the newly appointed Hitler and other historical names. The story starts when Hitler is consider by many to be doing positive things and ends just before the situation escalates to war.
Ugh. Boring and overwritten. I slogged through this with the hope that at some point it would get interesting. The beginning seemed promising, but this book is a serious doozy.
Not loving Larson's writing style, and I feel like he was either too kind to the Dodds, or didn't do a good job of illustrating how fucked people's thinking was back then. If they're supposed to be these big rebels in terms of seeing what Hitler was up to, then no wonder he was allowed to do everything he did.
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Narrative history for people who don't read narrative history. The political/historical story of Germany prior to World War II is woven through the story of the American ambassador's family, particularly his flirtacious 20something daughter who is dating Nazis and Russian spies. I couldn't put this down, which is not what I would have expected to say about a book about Nazis that I started reading over summer vacation.
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A very interesting book about the U.S ambassador to Germany during the 1930s as Hitler was building up his army. This was a fascinating view of Germany from an outsider, and Dodd's daughter Martha was quite the entertaining and scandalous gal to interject some drama. I found it very interesting, but I listened to the audio book, and the narrator was rather dry. I will definitely read Larson's other books, because he does such an excellent job of research and brings a personal tie to the story.
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Ambassador Dodd and his daughter in early-Nazi Berlin. Interesting, but it is a brief glimpse.
May 13, 2011
Angie
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May 19, 2011
Jeannine J9
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Jul 24, 2011
Jill
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Sep 21, 2011
Jessica (BlogEared Books)
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Mar 14, 2012
Katie
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Jun 18, 2013
C
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Feb 25, 2015
Candace Fox
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Aug 03, 2019
Tricia Spoonts
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Nov 13, 2020
Lucy
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