The Demon of Unrest, Erik Larson

 

The Demon of Unrest:  A saga of hubris, heartbreak, and heroism at the dawn of the civil war by Erik Larson

Started: August 10, 2024

Completed: August 15, 2024

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: My mother

Review:

I do enjoy the way that Larson tells a tale.  I also thought I had a good understanding of the start of the Civil War.  I did not.  I thought I had a thorough understanding of Lincoln's cabinet.  I still learned more.  Larson does a good job of building a vision through a character and then extending that vision to other characters.  Rusk is an excellent example whose life truly follows the story arc.  Having visited the batteries that play a prominent role in this book throughout my childhood (to include a visit to the library now in Fort Moultrie, I could see through my memory the sites described in the book.

Dead Wake, Erik Larson

 

Dead Wake:  The last crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson

Started: 12/24/2022
Completed: 12/29/2022
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: My mother

Review:

I like the way that Erik Larson writes and that is why this book gets a mild recommendation.  He did a good job of moving perspectives and coalescing disparate stories from the numerous passengers.  The problem, in my eyes, is that he didn't really address the consequence of the Lusitania being sunk.  He addressed the aftermath, but the real story, in my opinion, is how it changed the course of the US entrance into World War I.  Here, it seems almost incidental.  We get details (like Wilson golfing the next day) and a gaffe from the German PR machine, but it isn't clear that the Lusitania mattered.  Maybe it didn't (that is not what was taught in school), but I'm not clear on that score either.  As a result the book is both richly detailed and suffering from a lack of detail.  Ah well. 

The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson

The Splendid and the Vile:  A saga of Churchill, family, and defiance during the blitz by Erik Larson is a look at World War II.

Started: 4/19/2020
Completed: 4/25/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By:  My mother, who said that this was not one of Erik Larson's best, but that she really liked the way he wrote.

Words for which I sought help:

snog -- to kiss and caress amorously

Review:

In the end, my mother did not enjoy the book, but worked her way through it.  I, on the other hand, really liked the juxtaposition of the English and German perspective.  This is largely a biography of Churchill during the war, but it also throws in notes from German diaries.  In addition, Churchill's family gets a bit of perspective.  All of these people were very complex and trying to talk about all of them in a single volume (even a small library) is difficult.  I like the way that Larson was able to share the same events from multiple perspectives simultaneously without making the material dull.  Not every event was viewed from each character, but it seems that when there was a single event that multiple people saw differently, Larson honed in on it and provided the different viewpoints.   This made for a rich read.

In The Garden of Beasts, Erik Larson

In the Garden of Beasts:  Love, Terror, and American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson is a book that I decided to read simply because I've found Erik Larson's other books (Isaac's Storm and The Devil in the White City) really compelling reads.

Started: 8/2/2013
Completed: 8/10/2013
Recommendation: Looking at the Nazi's is hard, but if you can take it in general, this is a pretty darn good book
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This is a look at Nazi Germany through the eyes of the unusual American Diplomat.  Dodd was a historian and teacher in his 60s who was sent by FDR to Germany as Hitler rose in power.  His initial predilections were pro-German based largely on time in his youth spend studying there.  He slowly came to understand the horror of the Nazi government and came to despise them.  Travelling with him is his wife and two children (both adults).  His daughter is a socialite who has many indelicate moments with a wide variety of men of many different nationalities.  Using largely original material, Larson reconstructs what life was like for the Dodds and takes us along for the journey.  It is an odd way to look at Germany during this period and I really appreciated the new perspective.  It is hard to walk away from this book "liking" it.  The Nazi's taint everything they touch and this book suffers from the subject mater, not anything with the author or his approach.