Book Discussion: In The Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson

A Novel Idea Book Discussion.  This book discussion is part of the library’s ongoing Novel Idea Book Discussion schedule, but tonight we will be discussing Erik Larson’s nonfiction work that offers a fascinating view of Hitler’s Germany just prior to the war.  In 1933, William Dodd was appointed the U.S. ambassador to Germany and moved to Berlin with his family.  A historian and university professor by occupation, Dodd, sees the events and Nazi policies through a different lens than most Americans, indeed, differently than most of his fellow members of the state department.  He sent home warnings of what he could see happening down the road and was concerned by the rampant antisemitism that was an intrinsic part of Hitler’s world.  Battling similar attitudes, indifference, and economic distraction back home in the U.S., Dodd also found himself struggling to keep his family together in the face of his daughter’s growing interest in the Nazi world.  This book is filled with atmosphere and fascinating details of life in the German capital on the eve of World War II and the personalities of Nazi leaders as they circled the family.  

This discussion is part of the supporting programming for "Americans and the Holocaust," a traveling exhibit from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in conjunction with the American Library Association.