I will be teaching a mini-course dealing with the above title. If anyone is interested I have posted this course description and brief bibliography.

Steven Z. Freiberger, Ph.D

www.docs-book.com

George Santayana has stated: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” it is as true today as it has been at any time in our history. Catastrophic warfare, plague, racism, anti-immigration, political divisions bordering on violence are all present today, but it is not an aberration in American history. The purpose of this class is to explore a unique comparison between our current situation and a similar one that existed roughly a century ago. Subjects such as World War I, the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, anti-immigration attitudes resulting in violence, lynchings, political repression involving over 1000 arrests, people accused of treason etc., sound familiar? All will be compared to our contemporary life and how America emerged from this cataclysm a hundred years ago, and hopefully how can be reengaged and overcome what we face today. While lecture-based, the course will rely on a great deal of class discussion.

Classes:

April 19, 2023      1917-1921: Woodrow Wilson’s administration, World War I and its Aftermath,           

                               and the Rise of Intolerance in American Politics and Society.

April 26, 2023      2017-2021: Donald Trump’s administration, the Bifurcation of America, and its             

                               Impact for the Future.

May 10, 2023      Psychological Profile of Donald Trump

BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Abutaleb, Yasmeen; Paletta, Damian. NIGHMARE SCENARIO: INSIDE THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S RESPONSE TO THE PANDEMIC THAT CHANGED HISTORY

Akerman, Kenneth D. THE YOUNG J. EDGAR HOOVER, THE RED SCARE, AND THE ASSAULT ON CIVILIBERTIES

Alexander, Dan. WHITE HOUSE, INC.: HOW DONALD TRUMP TURNED THE PRESIDENCY INTO A BUSINESS

Avrich, Paul. SACCO AND VANZETTI: THE ANARCHIST BACKGROUND

Avrich, Paul and Karen. SASHA AND EMMA

Baker, Peter; Glasser, Susan. THE DIVIDER: TRUMP IN THE WHITE HOUSE 2017-2021

Barnes, Harper. NEVER BEEN A TIME: THE 1917 RACE RIOT THAT SPARKED THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Berg, Scott. WILSON.

Brands, H.W. WOODROW WILSON

Coben, Stanley. A. MITCHELL PALMER: POLITICIAN

Cooper, John Milton, Jr. WOODROW WILSON

Davis, Julie Hirschfeld; Shear, Michael D. BANNED: INSIDE TRUMP’S ASSAULT ON IMMIGRATION

Draper, Robert. WEAONS OF MASS DELUSION: WHEN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY LOST ITS MIND

Fleming, Thomas. THE ILLUSION OF VICTORY: AMERICA IN WORLD WAR I

Ginger, Ray. THE BENDING CROSS: A BIOGRAPHY OF EUGENE VICTOR DEBS

Guerrero, Jean. HATEMONGER: STEPHEN MILLER, DONALD TRUMP AND THE WHITE NATIONALIST AGENDA

Haberman, Maggie. CONFIDENCE MAN: THE MAKING OF DONALD TRUMP AND THE BREAKING                    OF AMERICA.

Heckshear, August. WOODROW WILSON: A BIOGRAPHY

Hochschild, Adam. AMERICAN MIDNIGHT: THE GREAT WAR, A VIOLENT PEACE, AND DEMOCRACY’S FORGOTTEN CRISIS

House Judiciary Committee. THE JANUARY 6^TH REPORT

Isikoff, Michael; Corn, David. RUSSIAN ROULETTE: THE INSIDE STORY OF PUTIN’S WAR ON AMERICA AND THE ELECTION OF DONALD TRUMP

Johnston, David Cay. THE MAKING OF DONALD TRUMP

Krehbiel, Randy, TULSA 1921

Lee, Brandy, M.D. THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP

Lee, Phyllis Lee. EDITH AND WOODROW: THE WILSON WHOTE HOUSE

Lemire, Jonathan. THE BIG LIE: ELECTION CHAOS, POLITICAL OPPORTUNISM, AND THE STATE OF AMERICAN POLITICS AFTER 2020

Leonnig, Carol; Rucker. I ALONE CAN FIX IT: DONALD J. TRUMP’S CATASTROPHIC FINAL YEAR

Madigan, Tim. THE BURNING: MASSACRE, DESTRUCTION, AND THE TULSA RIOT OF 1921

MacMillan, Margaret. PARIS 1919: THE SIX MONTHS THAT CHANGED THE WORLD

McAdams, Dan P. THE STRANGE CASE OF DONALD J. TRUMP: A PSYCHOLOGICAL RECKONING

McLaughlin, Malcom. POWER, COMMUNITY AND RACIAL KILLING IN EAST ST. LOUIS

Miller, Nathan. NEW WORLD COMING: THE 1920S AND THE MAKING OF MODERN AMERICA.

Murray, Robert K. THE RED SCARE: A STUDY IN NATIONAL HYSTERIA, 1919-1920

Okrent, Daniel. THE GUARDED GATE: BIGOTRY, EUGENICS AND THE LAW THAT KEPT TWO GENERATIONS OF JEWS, ITALIANS, AND OTHER EUROPEAN IMMIGRANTS OUT OF AMERICA

O’Brien, Tim. TRUMP NATION: THE ART OF BEING THE DONALD

O’Toole, Patricia. WOODROW WILSON AND THE WORLD HE MADE. 

Schier, Steven. THE TRUMP EFFECT: DISRUPTION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES FOR US POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT                                                      

Schmidt, Michael. DONALD TRUMP: THE UNITED STATES: INSIDE THE STRUGGLE TO STOP A PRESIDENT

Stelter, Brian. HOAX: FOX NEWS AND THE DANGEROUS DISTORTION OF TRUTH

Unger, Craig. THE HOUSE OF TRUMP THE HOUSE OF PUTIN

Washington Post. THE MUELLER REPORT

Weissmann, Andrew. WHERE LAW ENDS: INSIDE THE MUELLER INVESTIGATION

Woodward, Bob, Costa, Robert. PERIL

This Fall I will be teaching a course for OLLIE, part of the University of New Hampshire extension program.  The class will deal with the current war in Ukraine and will explore the Collapse of the Soviet Union; Vladimir Putin: A Profile; the Expansion of NATO; and the current war in Ukraine.  I am preparing a bibliography and I am posting it in case anyone might be interested.

Applebaum, Anne RED FAMINE: STALIN’S WAR ON UKRAINE

Aron, Leon YELTSIN: A REVOLUTIONARY LIFE

Ben-Ghiat, Ruth STRONGMEN: MUSSOLINI TO THE PRESENT

Belton, Catherine PUTIN’S PEOPLE: HOW THE KGB TOOK BACK RUSSIA AND THEN TOOK ON THE WEST

Browder, Bill FREEZING ORDER: A TRUE STORY OF MONEY LAUNDERING, MURDER, AND SURVIVING VLADIMIR PUTIN’S WRATH

__________. RED NOTICE: A TRUE STORY OF HIGH FINANCE, MURDER AND ONE MAN’S FIGHT FOR JUSTICE

Burgis, Tom KLEPTOPIA

Colton, Timothy J. YELTSIN: A LIFE

Dawisha, Karen PUTIN’S KLEPTOCRACY

Clover, Charles BLACK WIND, WHITE SNOW: THE RISE OF RUSSIA’S NEW NATIONALSIM

D’ Anieri, Paul UKRAINE AND RUSSIA: FROM CIVILIZED DIVORCE TO UNCIVIL WAR

Feifer Gregory THE GREAT GAMBLE: THE SOVIET WAR IN AFGHANISTAN

Freeland, Chrystia THE SALE OF THE CENTURY: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

Gessen, Masha THE MAN WITHOUT A FACE: THE UNLIKLEY RISE OF VLADIMIR PUTIN

____________. THE FUTURE IS HISTORY: HOW TOTALITARIANISM CLAIMED RUSSIA

____________. SURVIVING AUTOCRACY

Goldman, Marshall L. PETROSTATE: PUTIN, POWER, AND THE NEW RUSSIA

Gorbachev, Mikhail MEMOIRS

Hill, Fiona THERE IS NOTHING FOR YOU HERE: FINDING OPPORTUNITIES IN THE                          21^ST CENTURY.

Hill, Fiona; Gaddy, Clifford G. MR. PUTIN: OPERATIVE IN THE KREMLIN

Judah, Ben FRAGILE EMPIRE: HOW RUSSIA FELL IN AND OUT OF LOVE WITH VLADIMIR PUTIN

Knight, Amy ORDERS TO KILL: THE PUTIN REGIME AND POLITICAL MURDER

Koffler, Rebekah PUTIN’S PLAYBOOK: RUSSIA’S SECRET PLAN TO DEFEAT AMERICA

Myers, Steven L. THE NEW TSAR: THE RISE AND REIGN OF VLADIMIR PUTIN

Plokhy, Serhii THE GATES OF EUROPE: A HISTORY OF THE UKRAINE

___________.­­­THE LAST EMPIRE: THE FINAL DAYS OF THE SOVIET UNION

Pomerantsev, Peter NOTHING IS TRUE AND EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE

Sarotte, M. E. NOT ONE INCH: AMERICA, RUSSIA, AND THE MAKING OF THE POST-WAR STALEMATE

Service, Robert KREMLIN WINTER: RUSSIA AND THE SECOND COMING OF VLADIMIR PUTIN

Stent, Angela PUTIN’S WORLD: RUSSIA AGAINST THE WEST AND WITH THE REST

Short, Philip PUTIN* (to be published July 26, 2022)

Stent, Angela PUTIN

Snyder, Tim BLOODLANDS: EUROPE BETWEEN HITLER AND STALIN

____________. THE ROAD TO UNFREEDOM: RUSSIA, EUROPE, AMERICA

____________. ON TYRANNY

Taubman, William GORBACHEV: HIS LIFE AND TIMES

Yaffaf, Joshua BETWEEN TWO FIRES: TRUTH, AMBITION, AND COMPROMISE IN

PUTIN’S RUSSIA

Volkogonov, Dmitri AUTOPSY FOR AN EMPRE: THE SEVEN LEADERS WHO BUILT THE SOVIET REGIME

Vindman, Alexander HERE, RIGHT MATTERS: AN AMERICAN STORY

Yovanovitch, Marie LESSONS FROM THE EDGE: A MEMOIR

Zhadan, Serhiy MESOPOTAMIA

_____________.  THE ORPHANAGE

Zubok, Vladisslav M. A FAILED EMPIRE: THE SOVIET UNION IN THE COLD WAR FROM STALIN TO GORBACHEV_____________. COLLAPSE: THE FALL OF THE

Dr. Steven Z. Freiberger, www.docs-books.com. Please keep in mind this is a partial list and by no means is comprehensive for the topic. It does provide many choices that coincide with the course.

Acheson, Dean PRESENT AT CREATION

Ambrose, Stephen D-DAY: JUNE 6, 1944-THE CLIMACTIC BATTLE OF WORLD WAR II

_______________. BAND OF BROTHERS

Atkinson, Rick THE GUNS AT LAST LIGHT: THE WAR IN WESTERN EUROPE, 1944-1945

Beevor, Anthony D-DAY: THE BATTLE FOR NORMANDY

_____________. ARNHEM: THE BATTLE FOR THE BRIDGES, 1944

_____________. ARDENNES 1944: THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE

_____________. THE FALL OF BERLIN 1945

Butler, Susan ROOSEVELT AND STALIN

Caddick-Adams, Peter SAND AND STEEL: THE D-DAY INVASION AND THE LIBERATION OF FRANCE

__________________. SNOW AND STEEL: THE BATTLE OF THEBULGE, 1944-1945

Castigliola, Frank ROOSEVELTS LOST ALLIANCES: HOW PERSONAL POLITICS HELPED CAUSE THE COLD WAR

D’Este, Carlos DECISION IN NORMANDY

Eisenhower, John THE BITTER WOODS: THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE

Gaddis, John L. THE UNITED STATES AND THE ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR 1941-1947

Gardner, Lloyd C. ARCHITECTS OF ILLUSION

______________. SPHERES OF INFLUENCE

Hamilton, Nigel FDR’S FINAL ODYSSEY: D-DAY TO YALTA 1943-1945

Harbutt, Fraser J. YALTA 1945: EUROPE AND AMERICA AT THE CROSSROADS

______________. THE IRON CURTAIN: CHURCHILL, AMERICA AND THE ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR

Hastings, Max OVERLORD: D DAY AND THE BATTLE FOR NORMANDY

___________. DAS REICH: THE MARCH OF THE 2^ND SS PANZER DIVISION THROUGH FRANCE IN JUNE 1944

___________. ARMAGEDDON: THE BATTLE FOR GERMANY, 1944-1945

Holland, James NORMANDY ’44: D-DAY AND THE EPIC BATTLE FOR FRANCE

Keegan, John SIX ARMIES IN NORMANDY

Kelly, John SAVING STALIN: ROOSEVELT, CHURCHILL, AND STALIN AND THE COST OF ALLIED VICTORY IN EUROPE

Kershaw, Alex THE FIRST WAVE: THE D-DAY WARRIORS WHO LED THE WAY TO VICTORY IN WORLD WAR II

___________. THE LONGEST WINTER: THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE AND THE EPIC STORY OF WORLD WAR II’S MOST DECORATED PLATOON

___________. THE BEDFORD BOYS: ONE AMERICAN TOWN’S ULTIMATE D-DAY SACRIFICE

Kershaw, Ian THE END: THE DEFIANCE AND DESTRUCTION OF HITLER’S GERMANY, 1944-1945

Kershaw, Robert LANDING ON THE EDGE OF ETERNITY: TWENTY-FOUR HOURS AT OMAHA BEACH

MacDonald, Charles B. A TIME FOR TRUMPETS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE

Mastny, Vojtech THE COLD WAR AND SOVIET INSECURITY

McCullough, David TRUMAN

McManus, John C. THE DEAD AND THOSE ABOUT TO DIE: D-DAY, THE BIG RED ONE AT  OMAHA BEACH

______________. THE AMERICANS AT D-DAY: THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE AT THE NORMANDY INVASION

McMeekin, Sean STALIN’S WAR: A NEW HISTORY OF WORLD WAR II

Milton, Giles SOLDIER, SAILOR, FROGMAN, SPY, AIRMAN, GANSTER, KILL OR DIE

__________. CHECKMATE IN BERLIN

Miscamble, Wilson D. FROM ROOSEVELT TO TRUMAN: POTSDAM, HIROSHIMA AND THE COLD WAR

Plokhy, S. M. YALTA: THE PRICE OF PEACE

Preston, Diana EIGHT DAYS AT YALTA: HOW CHURCHILL, ROOSEVELT, AND STALIN SHAPED THE POST-WAR WORLD

Reynolds, David FROM WORLD WAR TO COLD WAR: CHURCHILL, ROOSEVELT END THE INTERNATIONAL HISTORY OF THE 1940s

Roberts, Geoffrey STALIN’S WARS

Ruane, Kevin CHURCHILL AND THE BOMB IN WAR AND COLD WAR

Ryan, Cornelius THE LONGEST DAY

_____________. THE LAST BATTLE

_____________. A BRIDGE TOO FAR

Scarborough, Joe SAVING FREEDOM: TRUMAN, THE COLD WAR, AND THE FIGHT FOR WESTERN CIVILIZATION

Schrijvers, Peter THOSE WHO HOLD BASTOGNE

Smyser, W. R. FROM YALTA TO BERLIN THE COLD WAR STRUGGLE OVER GERMANY

Steil, Benn THE MARSHALL PLAN: THE DAWN OF THE COLD WAR

Sterne, Gary THE COVERUP AT OMAHA BEACH: MAISY BATTERY AND US RANGERS

Symonds, Craig NEPTUNE: THE ALLIED INVASION OF EUROPE AND THE D-DAY LANDINGS

Wieviorka, Oliver NORMANDY: THE LANDINGS TO THE LIBERATION OF PARIS

“Walk With Eloise Freiberger” our wonderful granddaughter

This letter may not seem appropriate for a website that focuses on books, but the cause is so very important I thought I would post it. If you are not interested please disregard since I do not personally know most of you. Thank you for your consideration.

Dear Family and Friends,

As many of you know, our wonderful granddaughter, Eloise, now three years old, was diagnosed with cancer two months before she turned two years of age.  Her type of cancer is known as a Wilm’s tumor, a juvenile type of kidney cancer.  She was admitted to Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York for three weeks and then another three weeks at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital where she underwent six radiation treatments and another six months of chemotherapy.
Eloise did not deserve cancer. Why her?  Our families think about this often, but why anyone?  No one deserves cancer.  Yet so many of us have been impacted ourselves by family members and friends who have battled the disease.  Unfortunately, one of Eloise’s “MSK Big Sisters” has just been readmitted to MSK to undergo further chemo and cell transplants as her cancer has returned.
So friends and family, help us give hope and better options to the kids and families that will be affected by pediatric cancer.

Pediatric cancer research is wildly underfunded, receiving just 4-5% of the National Cancer Institute’s budget. Most progress has been made through private funding of research such as the Kids Walk. We were surprised to learn that many of Eloise’s medications were developed in the 1970s and her treatment protocol in the 1980s. While we are eternally grateful for the unparalleled care Eloise received at MSK Kids, we want better options for young people everywhere. Every dollar raised through Kids Walk for MSK Kids goes directly to research.

In that spirit Ronni and I would like to support our children, Josh and Caryn and help raise money for MSK through the “Walk With Eloise” on September 25th where we will walk one mile along the Brooklyn waterfront in honor of the sacrifices made, by children and families before us, so that Eloise’s treatment would be possible.
If you are interested in contributing to this vital cause please click on http://mskcc.convio.net/goto/walkwitheloise to make a gift toward eradicating pediatric cancer.

Thank you for your consideration,
Ronni and Steve

Remember when Amazon first came online in 1995, they would discount books by 33-40%.  This pricing lasted for a good 10-15 years then the discounts were reduced under the theory that once they conditioned you as a customer, they could slowly increase their profit margins.  After a year of Covid-19 restrictions Amazon’s popularity and bottom line boomed as people were sequestered at home.  Today the discount on books is usually 10-15%, and sometimes less, reflecting Amazon’s commitment to the bottom line.  Only speaking of book pricing, but I have noticed similar trends with other products.  The question is how we arrived at the present juncture, who is responsible, what are the historic trends when it comes to Amazon, and lastly what role has Jeff Bezos played in the process.  These questions are answered in full along with a partial biographical portrait of Bezos and how he built Amazon into the most dominant consumer source in the world and a company worth $1.76 trillion today in Brad Stone’s new book, AMAZON UNBOUND: JEFF BEZOS AND THE INVENTION OF A GLOBAL EMPIRE.

Stone, the senior executive editor of global technology at Bloomberg News has written an in depth account of Amazon’s phenomenal growth from 2010 through 2021 focusing on the managerial style of Jeff Bezos and his incredible ability to support, develop, and implement projects that would be worth billions.  Stone also digs deeply into the culture at Amazon and its mantra of putting the customer first, however, that “bumper sticker” is disingenuous as its record of employee safety, philanthropy, and demanding a certain belief system from executives and others reflects.

Bezos’ genius and overbearing personality are on full display in Stone’s account.  According to the author the watershed year for Amazon’s overwhelming dominance in multiple markets with varied products is 2010.  From its inception through 2010 Amazon was not a very profitable company, but the infrastructure groundwork for what Bezos was able to achieve was in place.  Stone covers every facet of the Amazon experience and how it developed into the economic behemoth it is today.  Stone delves into the development of Alexa, Kindle, Amazon Go, Amazon Web Services, Amazon Prime, Amazon Prime Video, Amazon advertising, the creation of Fulfillment Centers, its success in India, development of third party sellers, and the purchase of Whole Foods and the Washington Post in detail.

Bezos was the driving force behind Amazon’s technology innovations harnessing artificial intelligence, robotics, and other ingenious developments.  However, his management style pushed his engineers to the breaking point in many instances and his nasty commentary when not happy at meetings are legend.  Bezos could be “remorseless with those that did not meet his exacting standards, but he seemed to have an unusual wellspring of patience for those who practiced the challenging act of invention.”  Bezos gets a great deal of the credit for the Amazon experience and success, but he had tremendous executive talent and engineers to work with.  Stone explores the work of people such as Dilip Kumar, Greg Hart, Andy Jassy, Dave Clark, Jeff Wilke, Stephanie Landry among many others.  Bezos and his deputies believed that algorithms could do the job better and faster than people.  In many ways it explains the insensitivity that exists at Amazon toward certain employees especially in Fulfillment centers. 

According to Stone the ultimate goal was turning Amazon’s retail business into a self-service technology platform that could generate cash with a minimum amount of human intervention.  In accomplishing their mission, a number of negatives emerge.  Stone’s research uncovers a male dominated culture at Amazon reflected in the lack of women in upper echelon positions.  Women complained about the working environment and deals made with the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Woody Allen, Kevin Spacey, Jeff Tomba, and Ray Price all for naught.  Female anger emerged at the same time the “Metoo” movement gathered momentum as sexual inuendo, jokes, touching etc. came to the fore.  Casting a net around Amazon working conditions and treatment of employees also does not enhance the company’s reputation.  The use of robotics at Fulfillment Centers created repetitive motion/health issues; pressure on workers to gather products quickly and package them; worker performance was monitored  by tyrannical invisible robots, poor benefits and low pay, periodically firing people at the lowest level of the employee chain, in addition to the constant threat of termination, all take the luster off of Amazon’s workplace propaganda.  Further, Bezos and company are very anti-union and went out of their way to expand in areas, i.e.; airplane procurement and location which were also anti-union.  During the pandemic when Amazon’s work force passed one million and its annual earnings exceeded $380 billion as sales rose by 37%, the company pursued a virulently anti-union policy.  A way to sum this up is that the monograph highlights genius, innovation, and greed.

Stone is not a stylist, but he has the ability to explain a great deal of technical jargon in a very easy manner.  Whether explaining the role of artificial intelligence in the creation of Alexa or Amazon Go the reader can easily comprehend the arguments presented at executive conferences and meetings, particularly those of engineers.  Stone explores numerous topics aside from the development of new products or strategies that in the end created billions in sales and profits.  A key part of his discussion is not to reinforce the role of retail in Amazon’s success but focus on “Cloud Computing” which generated the revenue to fuel Amazon’s supercharged expansion.  As Mark Levinson points out in his review in the Washington Post, “with cloud computing, an organization can rent computers, programmers and security experts from an external provider such as Amazon instead of maintaining its own data centers. Amazon pioneered cloud computing in the early 2000s, and by the 2010s it was easily the market leader.  Bezos divined that finding new uses for Amazon’s burgeoning cloud infrastructure was the key to the company’s future.”

Stone’s discussion of the location process for a second headquarters when difficulties developed in Seattle with the city government and the ability to expand facilities is eye opening reflecting Amazon’s insensitivity toward local government.  In addition, the chapter on Amazon Web Services which became the most profitable component of the company is key as was the formation of their own advertising strategy and the creation of an airplane fleet and purchase of delivery vans to bring about next day delivery.

The Amazon story is one of amazement.  How could one company become so powerful economically and culturally as most people seem to consult Amazon on a daily basis, even before the onset of Covid-19 which would allow Amazon to expand exponentially as people had few alternatives to acquire products they needed while they quarantined.  By the end of 2020 “Amazon boasted a $1.6 trillion market cap and Jeff Bezos was worth more than $190 billion.  His wealth had increased more than 70% during the pandemic…a breathtaking achievement.”  Stone stresses that the key aspect of how this was achieved was Bezos’ management style as his underlings knew if the boss had an idea, it was their job to bring it to fruition which in most cases they did.  To his credit Stone has laid out the Amazon success story for the general public, but also its warts.  Though at times the narrative gets bogged down in details it is worth the read if you wonder when you “click” how did it come to that action by your finger for everything you need.

Today Montauk, NY located on the eastern tip of Long Island finds itself in the middle of a major transition.  First, it is a vacation/tourist spot with million dollar homes and easy access to the Atlantic Ocean, Block Island Sound, and numerous freshwater ponds.  Second, are the locals who try to maintain the quaintness and hope to prevent the “Hamptonization” of their town.  It is a struggle as the commercial fishing boats still ply the waters that surround the area, but also it is exposed to more and more people who either settled in year round because of Covid-19 which allowed them to work virtually from anywhere, or others who used their second homes to escape the pandemic that overwhelmed New York City.

In her new book, THE LOST BOYS OF MONTAUK: THE TRUE STORY OF THE WIND BLOWN, FOUR MEN WHO VANISHED AT SEA, AND THE SURVIVORS THEY LEFT BEHIND, Amanda M. Fairbanks, a former reporter for the East Hampton Star and New York Times creates a history of the Montauk region as she presents the lives of Michael Stedman, David Connick, Michael Vigliant, and Scott Clarke who perished at sea on March 29, 1984, and the ramifications of those deaths for those left behind.  Fairbanks examines  the profound shift of Montauk from a working class village. “a drinking town, with a fishing problem,” to a playground for the wealthy.  In addition, the author explores why a fishing accident forty years ago still resonates so strongly in the minds of locals.

MONTAUK, NEW YORK – OCTOBER 13, 2013: Montauk Lost at Sea Memorial by the Montauk Point Lighthouse at the edge of Long Island, New York. 

The book is a heartwarming and judicious account of the accident, what led up to it, how the different personalities involved interacted, and the implications for the future for survivors.  The motivating force in the story is Mike Stedman, a young man who was married to the water.  Whether he was surfing, running a party boat, or becoming a commercial fisherman, Mike was an intense individual who seemed to know what he wanted and did not want anything to get in his way.  His goal in life was to own his own boat and stop working for others, and in 1982 he purchased the “Wind Blown,” a commercial boat out of Freeport, TX.  His wife Mary felt bad karma from the outset, and many believed that the boat which had three previous owners and suffered mechanical difficulties on the trip back from Texas, was not seaworthy enough to engage in commercial shipping in the North Atlantic.

The crew of the Wind Blown formed a brotherhood despite their varied backgrounds economically and socially.  Michael V. and Scott C. were young deckhands from a hardscrabble background while Michael S., and Dave C. came from a privileged background.  Mike and Dave bonded easily as they shared poor relationships with their straight laced fathers and just wanted to be part of the water which their parents could not accept.  The four men worked as a team, many times to exhaustion as bringing in tilefish was very lucrative in the late 1970s and early 1980s.  Fairbanks does a marvelous job explaining the rigorous life of commercial fishermen and its impact on their families.

On March 28, 1984, the National Hurricane Service in New York posted a gale warning, later it issued a winter storm warning as the Montauk Light House reported wind gusts of over 100 mph.  The Wind Blown which had been out to sea for a few days headed back to Montauk and ran into a full blown nor’easter, the worst since 1962.  In describing how the crisis transpired, the author relied on extensive research that included interviews with family members, friends, and local townspeople.  What was clear is that the four young men were well liked and respected throughout the community.  This was highlighted by many contributions that helped pay for the search and rescue operations performed by private groups once the Coast Guard had pronounced that the ship and men had vanished.

(Mary and Mike Stedman and their first child, Chris, in about 1974)

Fairbanks integrates a study of the socio-cultural nature of the region, even providing a history of the tilefish’s migratory patterns and the money it brought to commercial fisherman.  She also focuses on the Maidstone Club and its history to highlight the economic dichotomy that existed as well as racism and anti-Semitism.  It was a club the Connick’s belonged to and it was the epitome of “old money.”  Fairbanks provides insights into many of the characters who spent most of their lives in Montauk and its environs.  Most were fisherman, bar owners, surf shop owners and the like who formed a special bond who resented many of the interlopers that began to pour into Montauk.  Throughout one must keep in mind that Montauk is the largest commercial harbor in New York State.  Its home to the greatest sports fishing on the east coast – species such as shark, tuna, and marlin proliferate at certain times of the year which attracted many outsiders.

The issue of closure for survivors is an important theme that Fairbanks develops.  It is a very complex situation emotionally when no bodies were located, though parts of the Wind Blown and its crews’ personal effects were found.  The Coast Guard did conduct a full five day search that included the Air National Guard and the US Navy. Twenty fishing boats, five planes, and three helicopters scoured the 25,000 square miles of ocean between Block Island and the Delaware coast to no avail. Once completed the privately funded search continued for another ten days, but is that enough for closure?  For many to this day the snuffing out of four promising young lives is still hard to accept.

To Fairbanks’ credit unlike other books on boating disasters she focuses more on the living than the dead.  She also is able to seamlessly integrate the cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s and the impact on the crew and their families, in addition to the rift between townies and the weekend set from New York.  Fairbanks writes that she “wanted to understand how tragedies become imprinted in our memories, how trauma and grief wend their way through generations and become a kind of inheritance bequeathed to our descendants.”  If this was her goal, she has accomplished it with a well written and poignant book that exhibits a great deal of love, but tremendous sorrow and grief.

For years I taught Holocaust history and showed my students the film “Europa, Europa” based on the life of Slomo Perel, a story about a young Jewish boy who joins the Hitler Youth and winds up in the Wehrmacht as a means of avoiding persecution and death.  I often wondered how many other young Jews did the same and fought for the Nazi regime.  The answer to that question is clearly laid out in Bryan Mark Rigg’s study, HITLER’S JEWISH SOLDIERS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF NAZI RACIAL LAWS AND MEN OF JEWISH DESCENT IN THE GERMAN MILITARY.

Mischlinge is defined as “half caste, mongrel or hybrid,” the key term that permeates Rigg’s narrative and the vehicle used to categorize half and quarter Jews as designated by the Nazis after the Nuremberg Blood Laws of 1935.  According to Rigg perhaps 150,000 Mischlinge served in the German military  and Adolf Hitler played a central role in the process. 

As Rigg develops his narrative a number of things become clear.  The Nazi reaction to racial laws was not consistent and, in many cases, appeared hypocritical as many Nazis including Hermann Goring, Head of the Luftwaffe did not conform to racial laws.  Many military officials believed that half and quarter Jews were experienced and excellent soldiers who they would need in combat and found Hitler’s anti-Semitism to be irrelevant to the Wehrmacht.  The war was paramount and the use of Mischlinge at least up until the invasion of Russia in June 1941 was the primary concern of German generals.  Following the summer of 1941 more and more Mischlinge would be thrown out of the Wehrmacht and deported to die in Hitler’s ovens as Martin Bormann, a rabid anti-Semite who opposed the concept of the Mischlinge serving in the German military would become Hitler’s secretary and right hand man.

Riggs is determined to explain that the lack of uniformity on the part of Nazis toward Mischlinge was very confusing for these half and quarter Jews and created an Eriksonian identity crisis as they suffered from extreme role confusion.  Many realized that the only way to survive was to enlist or be drafted into the Wehrmacht and prove themselves to be brave and outstanding soldiers.  They believed that this could save their families in addition to themselves.  Many tried to shed their Jewishness as soon as society allowed and others who fought for Austria and Germany in World War I  believed that the assimilation they achieved through their service would assist them.  In the end this approach did not save most from death, though a large number did survive some through luck, some through perseverance and playing the Nazi system ingeniously, and lastly, some received special exemptions from Hitler himself who was intimately involved in categorizing people reflecting his obsession over racial policy.

Riggs approach to his topic does not lead to a smoothly written monograph.  In fact, it reads like a well cited dissertation as he relates countless examples of individuals within the Wehrmacht, the Nazi hierarchy, and Jewish citizens who were greatly affected by Nazi racial policy and the categorization of the Mischlinge.  Riggs stresses the confusion felt by Nazi leadership as the Mischlinge were part German and could be a significant asset in the war.  But Hitler despised most of them as he saw them as invisible and with the ability to infect the Aryan with their inferior blood.

For the Mischlinge themselves they would be deprived of citizenship, the rights to sleep with Aryans, university education, etc.  The racial laws forced Mischlinge to dramatically alter their lifestyle “causing many to live without confidence.”  The result was numerous divorces as people tried to protect themselves, children disowned, and many grandparents rejecting their grandchildren.  In this instance Riggs needs to provide more than anecdotal evidence in discussing how families were destroyed and how individuals came to terms with their loss of identity.

For the Nazis it was very difficult to identify Mischlinge and further they did not have the necessary resources to accomplish the task.  Riggs does provide a historical breakdown of the number of Jews that had fought in the Franco-Prussian War, World War I, and other conflicts to arrive at his 150,000 figure which seems accurate.  For the Mischlinge most were unaware they were even Jewish until after 1933.

Riggs effort is well researched.  He provided voluminous foot notes, a strong bibliography, in addition to interviewing over 400 Mischlinge and their relatives, and received access to many of their personal records, both in their possession and government archives. 

Despite the valuable information that Riggs provides the title of the book is misleading as historian Richard J. Evans argues that the monograph is not about Jews as is commonly understood, but about Mischlinge or people that were categorized as half or quarter Jews, many of which were unaware that they were Jews in the first place.  These people were neither Jewish by their own identity, religious law, or even Nazi law.  The book’s title is a teaser because it appears to the uninformed that the book is about Jews in the Wehrmacht which is not accurate and many of these Mischlinge were anti-Semites themselves.  Interestingly as historian Jeremy Noakes argues less than 10% of half Jews saw themselves as Jewish, and only 1.2% of quarter Jews considered themselves as Jewish.  Riggs had an opportunity to explore the nature of Jewish identity beyond Nazi definitions, but he chooses to forgo that opportunity.  Further, Riggs relates that with few exceptions, none of the men he interviewed had any idea of the abuse and massacres that occurred as the Nazis tried to exterminate German and European Jewry.  Riggs concludes that “like most other Germans, many Mischlinge knew about deportation, but did not equate them with systematic murder.”  Further, Mischling serving in the Wehrmacht did not understand  what was happening to their loved ones.  Most claimed they learned what happened to their relatives after the war.

Riggs is successful in digging up a great deal of fascinating detail, but he does not really add to the historiography of Nazi Germany except for Hitler’s obsession with minute points of racial doctrine and how that concern was translated and executed by Wehrmacht leadership and German soldiers in general.  I agree with  David J. Fine in his H-Net Review in the Humanities and Social Sciences of July 2004 that the book “will be of interest to students of the Wehrmacht and Nazi racial policy, [but] it falls short of exploring the bigger questions of the role of Jews in supporting the Nazi state or of German soldiers’ acknowledgement of their role as perpetrators in the Holocaust.”

• 

During the past year, the United States has undergone a series of events that have accelerated our partisan divide and portends serious problems in the near future unless we can overcome our differences. Election conspiracy theorists and deniers, the January 6^th attack on the capitol by insurrectionists, the continuation of gun violence, police actions, voter suppression legislation, cancel culture are just a few of the issues contributing to our political, social, and economic insanity.  If this is not enough, we still are in the midst of a pandemic with 30-40% of the population refusing to be vaccinated.  Former President Trump reigns in Mar-a-Lago as a potentate receiving his minions pouring out his venom, lies, and conspiracy theories and one must ask, OMG how did we get here?

Perhaps BBC New York correspondent Nick Bryant provides some of the answers in his new book; WHEN AMERICA STOPPED BEING GREAT: A HISTORY OF THE PRESENT.  I find it intriguing that someone from across the Atlantic seems to have greater insight  into our situation than the majority of Americans arguing that “Ronald Reagan was one of the Founding Fathers of America’s modern day polarization.”  Bryant develops his theme by explaining that Reagan and the arrival of his right wing supporters who loved his anti-government persona along with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act began the road to our current polarization.  Barry Goldwater’s loss in 1964 gave birth to the Republican’s southern strategy as white voters grew afraid because of the fast pace of racial reform.  The situation was further exacerbated by the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the Immigration and Nationalities Act which expanded voting to minorities and ended white preferences for those entering the United States and enhanced the “browning of America.”  The events surrounding the elections of 1976 and 1980 set the stage for the election of Ronald Reagan a man who relied on his acting ability, stage management, sense of humor, and ability to communicate to win over the American electorate.

It was Ronald Reagan who became our first movie star president and developed the theme of “Let’s Make America Great Again” paving the way for Trump to become the first reality TV star to enter the White House and refine Reagan’s message.  The difference between the two was that Reagan’s personality was uplifting while Trump’s emitted a nastiness never seen before in the Oval Office.  In a sense Reagan was Trump’s role model except he lacked the vindictiveness and abusive behavior that the former president exhibited over his term in office.  According to Bryant Reagan created the choreographed presidency with evocative scripting, polished production values, an eye for the dramatic photo-op, and a variety of show-like mix of spectacle, entertainment and gags.  The problem was that Reagan was intellectually incurious, ill informed, and overly reliant on cue cards resulting in a flawed blueprint that showed that the president could achieve historical greatness without even mastering the basics of the job.  Americans felt comfortable with Reagan’s manner and presentation unaware of the lack of depth behind the scenes – sound familiar?

The Reagan era witnessed a massive increase in wealth and consumerism – “Greed is Good!” became the epitome of Reaganism.  To prove his point Bryant does an excellent job referencing the the culture of the 1980s through film, television which reaffirms the results of Reagan era policies.  Further he explores Trump’s role during the decade and concludes quite correctly that he became the poster child of a profit obsessed society highlighted by garishness, ego, and a sense of entitlement.  But Bryant is clear Reagan is responsible for the anti-government sentiment that has proliferated over the last twenty years and he is also correct that if one digs down into Reagan’s record the result would be Reagan would probably be primaried today if he ran for office by the Trumpers!

Despite the fact that Trump/Reagan seemed to dominate large segments of the book there are a number of important specific reasons that Bryant relies upon to make his arguments.  Key among them is the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the Immigration and Nationalities Act that have been mentioned.  All deal with the racial divide in America which is a dominant reason for the lack are bipartisanship in Congress which is the main reason for the decline in America’s reputation worldwide and the fracturing of American society.  1991 stands out because of the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles which clearly proved that no one of color would receive fair treatment under the American justice system. This was a warning at a time that the Berlin Wall had fallen, and the Soviet Union ceased to exist, as the US saw itself as the dominant and most respected country in the world.  But from this point it was all downhill.

The arrival of Newt Gingrich is another major cause for the developing dysfunction in US politics.  Bryant follows Gingrich’s career, ideology, and actions that led to his Speakership of the House.  Gingrich’s slash and burn mentality designed to create roadblocks for any democratic legislation along with his nasty confrontational style accomplished his goal of making the Republican party an opposition party and did away with any consensus in Congress.  The resulting grid lock that led to Bill Clinton’s impeachment, shutting down the government, among many other actions slowly eroded our democracy.  Bryant does an excellent job connecting the political dots in bringing Gingrich to the Speakership as the Democrats rejected John Tower as Defense Secretary to be replaced by Dick Cheney whose leadership position in the House went to Gingrich launching the Georgia lawmaker to create his mayhem.

1992 would be the watershed election as it reflected the racism and anti-Semitism of Pat Buchanan wrapped in his ethno-nationalism.  The election of Clinton would normalize presidential bad behavior, and gave us Ross Perot whose populist lure of nativism, nationalism, and protectionism which would dominate politics in 2016.  This nativism would lead to the Oklahoma City bombing, American failure in Mogadishu, Bosnia and Rwanda further eroding America’s reputation in the world.  It appeared despite the economic growth of the 1990s the US was self-destructing.

Bryant presents cogent answers to the question raised in the title of his book.  He zeros in on the role 9/11, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent disaster in that country and Afghanistan, and the 2008 economic disaster that still reverberates with American voters as those who were responsible were never punished and the government bailed out the “too big to fail” banks.  This would lead to the Tea Party and further divided the American polity.  Events overseas roiled America’s allies particularly the occurances surrounding Abu Ghraib, torture at black sites conducting by CIA operatives and others, and the situation at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.  All of this was occurring as Vladimir Putin pursued a revanchist policy in Russia. Angry over NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the state of Russian influence in the world he would take advantage of America’s continued slide in worldwide influence.  Putin’s task was facilitated by George Bush’s “Axis of Evil speech,” President Obama’s decision to allow President Bashir Assad to cross his “red line” in Syria, President Trump’s abandonment of the Kurds in Syria, all of which gave Russia an opening in the Middle East, Crimea, Georgia, and eastern Ukraine which Putin took advantage.

Foreign policy bears a great deal of responsibility for America’s decline but also domestic policy.  Globalization is seen by American workers in the “Rust Belt” which produced NAFTA as a major reason for their loss of their livelihood.  Between 2001 and 2013 over 65,000 factories closed in the United States costing over 5,000,000 jobs which would provide the seed bed for Trump’s support.  Trump would play on white resentment against trade policy, immigration, and cultural issues to ingratiate himself with the Rust Belt revolt against robots (automation that cost jobs) to gain the presidency.  This white-working class revolt heated by US corporate tax policies would further inflame the US electorate.

Bryant does a good job developing themes that are difficult to disagree with, but he also produces vignettes that reflect American hypocrisy, i.e., Gingrich’s affair with a congressional aide, Bob Livingstone his replacement as Speaker was exposed by Hustler magazine for his own affair, and Dennis Hastert, his replacement was later exposed as a child molester – all while trying to impeach and ruin Bill Clinton!  Another surrounds the Bush administration’s actions in dealing with or not dealing with Hurricane Katrina, and his approach to the 2008 economic crisis.

Bryant’s dissection of each presidential administration seems fair and accurate.  “No drama Obama” receives his due apart from his defunct Syrian policy.  By not addressing income inequality in America, lining up with Wall Street not main street, and trying to achieve consensus with a Republican Party that totally rejected him in large part because of race all contributed to a weak presidency which his “aloof” cerebral manner just exacerbated.  This produced the election of 2010 which saw an increase in of 63 Republican seats in the House and 8 Senate seats.  The argument is sound that perhaps Obama was doomed because of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s policy of making Obama a one term president which he is continuing with Joe Biden, but an attempt to confront McConnell’s tactics should have been more forceful.

(President Barrack Obama)

Bryant does not disappoint in his examination of the Trump presidency.  The analysis of Trump’s personality and actions line up with numerous books that have been written since 2017 that explains Trump’s “American carnage.”  “Like Reagan’s and Obama’s, this was a hugely symbolic presidency., but whereas the Gipper signified resurgence and Obama embodied renewal, Trump represented revenge.”  Trump greatly accelerated the world’s negative view of the United States.  Though nationalists and right wing authoritarian leaders made Trump weak at the knees his policies of: withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal; withdrawal from the Trans Pacific Partnership; withdrawal from the Paris climate accord; his fawning over Vladimir Putin; use of a wrecking ball to the Atlantic alliance; his denigration of allied leaders;  withdrawal from Syria; his bromance with Kim Jong-un; praising Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman who ordered the death of a Washington Post reporter; trade wars; suspending US funding for the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic all resulted in America’s moral reputation worldwide coming close to an abyss which of course China benefited from along with other presidential actions.  A Pew research poll gave Putin a higher international approval rating than Trump 33-29%, and Xi Jinping was at 28%!

On the domestic front Trump even raised the polarization level during a pandemic, i.e.; mask debate, anti-vaxers, holding virus spreading events etc.  While Trump fiddled, minorities burned, or died at an unacceptable rate when compared to whites.  Lacking health insurance and economic resources Trump just caste people adrift.  Misinformation and conspiracy theories reinforced by the 2020 election outcome, the George Floyd murder by a Minneapolis policemen heightened support for the Black Lives Matter Movement all of which contributed to the rift between the “red” United States and “blue” United States making people overseas wonder how the richest country on earth has made such a mess of things resulting in its precipitous decline over the last twenty years.

But as Bryant makes clear, Trump is not the only reason America stopped being great, it was a process that began with Vietnam, racial issues of the 1960s, and the evolution of personalities and events over fifty years that saw Pax Americana last for a noticeably short period despite the claims of George H. W. Bush in 1991.  The United States is confronted with a public health crisis that disproportionately affects people of color, an economic shock that disproportionately affects people of color, and civil unrest caused by police brutality that obviously disproportionately affects people of color.  The United States according to Bryant is a shattered mirror being held up to a fractured country.

 Bryant’s overall approach produces a tightly argued narrative that I would challenge anyone to disagree with.  It is thoughtful, based on personal experience, and relies on facts and reality, which for some is difficult to accept.

• 

Today we find that immigration reform and related issues like DACA and a southern border wall are at the forefront of our election debate aside from Covid-19.  Immigration has been a very controversial issue throughout American history and one of the most contentious involved what to do with the hundreds of thousands of displaced persons that were a result of Nazi racial policy and their conduct during World War II.  By the end of 1945 roughly one million displaced persons remained in Germany: Jews, Poles, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, among other groups who refused to return to their home countries or had no homes to return to.  This group labeled the “Last Million” by author David Nasaw in his latest book, THE LAST MILLION: EUROPE’S DISPLACED PERSONS FROM WORLD WAR TO COLD WAR follows these individuals from three to five years as they lived in displaced person’s camps and temporary homelands in exile divided by their nationalities.  Nasaw’s effort is masterful as he offers a comprehensive study of this postwar displacement and statelessness.  Nasaw, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography for his monographs on Andrew Carnegie and William Randolph Hearst, and a superb biography of Joseph P. Kennedy might just win the Pulitzer with his current effort.

Nasaw’s narrative is accompanied by useful analysis concerning the plight, condition, and future hopes of the Displaced persons (DPs).  He delves into a myriad of aspects concerning the “Last Million,” including life inside the refugee camps ranging from issues like cultural nationalism to medical care.  Further, the politics and big power competition is on full display as are the domestic concerns of countries confronted with DPs issues.  Nasaw does an exceptional job of integrating the views of numerous historical experts like Tim Snyder, Valdis O. Lumans, Ytzkak Arad, Christopher Dieckmann and numerous others, documentary materials, the experiences of survivors,  memoirs and other writings of refugees.  Nasaw also produces documentary excerpts to allow the reader to get a feel for what the DPs were experiencing.  Nasaw’s use of personal histories of the DPs is an important contribution and forms an important background for the story he tells.  The depth of Nasaw’s research is reflected in the voluminous footnotes and extensive bibliography that he mines to support his conclusions

Nasaw pursues a chronological approach beginning with the end of World War II which one reporter described Germany as “history’s greatest hobo jungle” and another described the situation as “wars living wreckage – living, moving, pallid wreckage.”  This was the environment that over a million people found themselves following the war after close to four million people returned home. For Nasaw his monograph is the story of these displaced Eastern Europeans who once the war ended refused to go home or had no homes to return to.  “It is the story of their confinement in refugee camps for up to five years after the war ended.” 

In describing the plight of these displaced persons Nasaw develops a number of important themes that are fully explored and analyzed.  First, the “Last Million” saw their fate in the hands of the allies.  The United States and England believed that Eastern Europeans whose lands had been annexed or occupied by the Soviet Union had the right to delay or refuse repatriation and the international community had the duty to care for them.  This led to disagreements and confrontation with Moscow as Stalin wanted all displaced persons who originated from the Soviet Union and areas annexed before and during the war to be repatriated willingly or through force.  When thousands refused repatriation, Stalin tried to create havoc. 

(US Secretary of State George C. Marshall)

Second, after a year of trying to get people to return to the country of origin and the obstinate refusal of the “Last Million” to return home, the Americans and the British decided that repatriation having failed, they would have to be resettled in new homes and homelands outside Germany.  This would involve the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and its replacement the International Relief Organization (IRO) whose mandate would become resettlement, not repatriation.  Many Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians and Ukrainians and almost all Jews refused to return home creating many issues; from dealing with the opposition of the Soviet Union, and the desire of Jews to go to Palestine despite England’s refusal to allow them to do so. This would result in numerous commissions to investigate the situation as well as domestic political machinations and pressure.

Third, IRO member nations accepted the resettlement of Protestants, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox Christians, but refused to do so for the 200-250,000 Jews who remained trapped in camps in the American zone while pressure was put on England to allow them to settle in Palestine.  The British looked at the situation from a power politics lens seeking to mollify the Arabs, protect the oil, foil Soviet attempts to expand into the Middle East, and maintain as much of their empire as possible.

Fourth, President Harry Truman worked to pressure the British over Palestine and Congress to allow Jews and other refugees to enter the United States.  He would lose the battle on both counts as the British were bent on kowtowing to the Arabs and midwestern Republicans refused to alter the 1924 Johnson Act as they argued that Jews were associated with communism and Soviet agents would be smuggled into the United States if “the gates were opened.”  Truman would continue to push his agenda of allowing 100,000 Jews to enter Palestine, and eventually supported the partition of Palestine and the recognition of the state of Israel in May 1948 despite British pressure and caustic commentary.

Fifth, many refugees were former Nazis or collaborators, and it became difficult to separate them out from non-criminal elements.  By 1946 it was becoming increasingly clear that 10-30% of the Volksdeutsche (people whose language and culture had German origins but who did not hold German citizenship) in the camps were pro-Nazi and favored Germany over Russia.  Many of the Baltic people and Western Ukrainians had committed war crimes and now they were trying to blend in.  No matter who these people were, it was decided against forced repatriation.  Two other aspects were also at play; first the United States was in a race to allow former Nazis who had skill sets needed in the developing Cold War visa vie the Soviet Union; second, in the end thousands of former Nazis and their collaborators were allowed into the United States, Australia, England, Brazil and Argentina in part to offset labor shortages.

Sixth, the role of the American military who were placed in charge of the refugee camps was exceedingly difficult.  A prime issue was how to treat the Holocaust survivors -should they be housed and dealt with separately from other refugees like the Volksdeutche  and others who were POWS and Germans returning home.  This provoked a great deal of debate internationally as Washington, and London finally decided that the experience of the Jews was such that they needed special treatment after the US Army refused to do so.

Lastly, the concept of anti-Semitism was rampant even after the war which pervades the narrative.  It was clear in US congressional debate over refugee legislation on the part of southern Democrats and northern senators like Republican Chapman Revercomb of West Virginia.  On June 25, 1948 President Truman signed the Displaced Persons Act which mostly excluded Jews.  It allowed thousands of Volksdeutsche into the United States, many of which were Nazi collaborators, ie; Waffen-SS members, Auxiliary Police that worked with the SS, etc.  In Poland violence against Jews killed 2000, the most devastating occurred in during the Kielce pogrom.  It can also be seen in the policies pursued by the US military and commentary by the likes of General George Patton, and some of the policies pursued by UNRRA, the IRO, and the British government.

Nasaw explores many important individuals, and issues, placing them in the correct historical context.  He devotes a great deal of space to the Palestine impasse highlighting his narrative with a description of the Harrison Report, the work of the IRO, the voyage of the Exodus 1947 and other aspects of this difficult situation.  Nasaw also spends a great deal of time explaining the goals of each country and ethnic group that is involved with the DPs.  It seems that each country and nationality and/or ethnic group had their own agenda that often conflicted with another country or organization which the author hashes out and tries to explain the ramifications for decisions that were reached.  The actions of the Soviet Union before the Nazis invaded is key for Nasaw as Moscow annexed the Baltic states which will become a major sticking point after the war.

Nasaw does not add much to the horrors that the Jews experienced during the war.  Building upon the work of Nikolaus Wachsmann, Nasaw focuses on slave labor for the Nazi infrastructure.  Even as the war was coming to an end the Nazis rounded up thousands of concentration camp survivors and POWS to build a Nazi infrastructure underground and in the mountains to prolong the war and allow the development of new weapons.  This would result in working people to death through labor with the same result as extermination camps.

One of the strengths of Nasaw’s work is his ability to make sense out of this complex and bewildering moment.  As Adina Hoffman points out in her review in the September 15, 2020 New York Times Nasaw “clarifies without oversimplifying” and his ability to “maneuver with skill between the nitty-grittiest of diplomatic (and congressional, military, personal) details and the so-called Big Picture.”  The question remains how could such a situation evolve?  The answer is complicated and Nasaw does a remarkable job summing up events and decision-making in a scrupulous manner.  The book itself is one of the most important written on the topic and Nasaw’s flowing writing style makes it much easier for the reader to digest.

For those of you who have had your eyes opened by Don Winslow’s trilogy dealing with the Mexican drug cartels you will not be disappointed by Jeanine Cummins’ new book AMERICAN DIRT.  Cummins offers a number of motivations in writing her novel.  Chief among them is that there are numerous books that depict the underside and violence of the drug cartels which contribute to the worst stereotypes involving Mexico.  Cummins on the other hand wants to deal with the flipside of that narrative, describing the experiences of ordinary people who for their own personal reasons must leave their families and past lives to escape northward.  How does a woman manage to escape a place like Acapulco where the story begins and take her child to an unknown destination facing possible horrors that they have only heard about in passing?  For Cummins, these stories have been overlooked, but she argues that all migrants need a voice as they are people with needs, dreams just like others and she intends to give them a platform.

Cummins begins her novel by metaphorically hitting her readers with a blunt object.  It makes the reader sit up and pay close attention and continue to read about another senseless killing that the Mexican police have no intention of solving.  The opening scenes deal with a mass revenge killing of sixteen people that Lydia and her eight year old son Luca must hid in the corner of a bathtub in order to escape.  Immediately, Lydia realizes that her husband, mother, aunt, and cousins are dead and that she and her son must leave as fast as possible before they are next because she knows who the killer is, though is unsure why her family is victimized.

Lydia first met the man who ordered the massacre in the bookstore she owned in Acapulco.  One day, Javier Crespo Fuentes, known as La Lechuza, enters the store and after browsing the stacks he chooses a number of items that are Lydia’s favorites.  After chatting it appears that they share a love of books and over the next few weeks he visits the store, buys more books, shares his poetry, and Lydia believes they have developed a close friendship.   Lydia’s husband, Sebastian Perez Delgado is a reporter who specializes in unmasking Mexican cartels and in this case unbeknownst to Lydia he has written an article about the head of Los Jardineros, Lydia’s new friend.  Once she learns who Fuentes is and the carnage and death, he has wrought she is conflicted.  First, she denies her friend is involved and then once the murder of her family takes place, she realizes she and Luca must run.

Despite what she has been through Lydia’s approach to Fuentes is puzzling as she tries to balance her family’s needs with the truth, and the fact that Fuentes has fallen in love with her. The question is why she tortures herself emotionally after all that has occurred, a question the novel really does not address.  Half-way through the story Lydia learns why she and her son have become fugitives from Fuentes’ cartel and his contacts across Mexico.  From this point on it dawns on Lydia that she and Luca are the target of a nationwide search where police, social services, and other governmental institutions are in the pocket of the cartels.

Cummins graphically recounts Lydia and Luca’s journey as they leave Acapulco employing La Bestia, cargo trains, as they ride on top of the cars along with hundreds of other migrants from all over Central America and Mexico who are trying for a new life in the United States.  Cummins has produced a gripping story that in many ways is unconventional as she tells it from the viewpoint of the migrant experience.  Lydia suffers from a great deal of guilt as she sees herself as responsible for the death of her family and now all she can do revolves around saving Luca.  For years she pitied migrants, now she had become one.  Cummins’ portrayal is fraught with danger as Lydia and Luca must jump on to moving trains from overpasses, travel at night by themselves, and deal with “supposed” government migrant agents who are really predators who want to sell young girls and woman into sex slavery, rob them of their few possessions, and if they are of no use kill them.

The author creates a number of moving and important characters.  Soledad and Rebeca are beautiful sixteen and fourteen years old running from the dangers of Honduras who join with Lydia and Luca to form a quasi-family.  Along the way there are a number of people who help them, a doctor, priests, and peasant families all assist.  But there is danger around every corner.  The goal for Lydia and Luca is to reach an uncle in Denver, for Soledad and Rebeca they have an uncle in Maryland – however reaching those destinations seems almost impossible as they run into a number of nefarious characters along with those who want to help.  The question is who do you trust?

(The US-Mexico border fence outside Lukeville, Arizona. )

Cummins shifts the stories chronology a number of times to facilitate providing the background history of each of the main characters past.  As she does what takes place at the outset of the novel makes more and more sense, even in a convoluted way.  But the question must be asked, does the author reach her goal of making the reader aware of what is going on at our southern border, through the eyes of those who desperately want to escape their homeland for a better and safer life – that answer must be yes.*

*I would recommend Lauren Groff’s review of the book, “American Dirt Plunges Readers Into the Border Crisis,” New York Times, March 6, 2020 for an excellent analysis of what Cummins’ wanted to achieve and if she was able to do so.  It follows below:

‘American Dirt’ Plunges Readers Into the Border Crisis

By Lauren Groff

• Published Jan. 19, 2020Updated March 6, 2020
•  
• AMERICAN DIRT
  By Jeanine Cummins

A few pages into reading Jeanine Cummins’s third novel, “American Dirt,” I found myself so terrified that I had to pace my house. The novel opens into a tense and vivid scene in Acapulco, the massacre of an entire Mexican family during a quinceañera cookout. The only survivors are a mother and her 8-year-old son, who must flee the narcos who spend the rest of the book hunting them down. When the boy’s mother tackles him so they can hide behind a shower wall in a bathroom, he bites his lip and a drop of blood splatters on the ground.

“Footsteps in the kitchen. The intermittent rattle of bullets in the house. Mami turns her head and notices, vivid against the tile floor, the lone spot of Luca’s blood, illuminated by the slant of light from the window. Luca feels her breath snag in her chest. The house is quiet now. The hallway that ends at the door of this bathroom is carpeted. Mami tugs her shirtsleeve over her hand, and Luca watches in horror as she leans away from him, toward that telltale splatter of blood. She runs her sleeve over it, leaving behind only a faint smear, and then pitches back to him just as the man in the hallway uses the butt of his AK-47 to nudge the door the rest of the way open.”

As the anxiety-riddled mother of an 8-year-old — as a person who has nightmares after every report of a mass shooting — I felt this scene in the marrow of my bones.

But another, different, fear had also crept in as I was reading: I was sure I was the wrong person to review this book. I could never speak to the accuracy of the book’s representation of Mexican culture or the plights of migrants; I have never been Mexican or a migrant. In contemporary literary circles, there is a serious and legitimate sensitivity to people writing about heritages that are not their own because, at its worst, this practice perpetuates the evils of colonization, stealing the stories of oppressed people for the profit of the dominant. I was further sunk into anxiety when I discovered that, although Cummins does have a personal stake in stories of migration, she herself is neither Mexican nor a migrant.

Yet the narrative is so swift, I don’t think I could have stopped reading. I kept turning the pages, following Lydia and Luca, the mother and son, as they flee through Mexico, gathering a misfit band of other migrants. We learn that Lydia had been a bookstore owner, the wife of a journalist who infuriated the wrong people, and Luca a tiny prodigy of geography. They are hunted by Los Jardineros, the cartel that killed Lydia’s family. They are robbed by corrupt police officers. They learn how to ride La Bestia, the train on which hundreds of migrants die every year. They ultimately find themselves in Nogales, where they must cross the desert by foot at night with a coyote to arrive in the United States. Their painful and thirsty hours in the desert haunt me still.

I have been trained by my education, reading and practice of literary fiction to believe that good novels have some titration of key elements: obvious joy in language, some form of humor, characters who feel real because they have the strangenesses and stories and motivations of actual people, shifting layers of moral complexity and, ultimately, the subversion of a reader’s expectations or worldview. The world of “American Dirt” is too urgent for humor or for much character development beyond Lydia’s own. There is a single clear moral voice entirely on the side of the migrants, because the book’s purpose is fiercely polemical, which I would have understood even without the author’s note in which Cummins writes that she intended “to honor the hundreds of thousands of stories we may never get to hear,” so that people who are not migrants can “remember: These people are people.” Polemical fiction is not made to subvert expectations or to question the invisible architecture of the world; polemical fiction is designed to make its readers act in a way that corresponds to the writer’s vision.

All of this is to say that “American Dirt” contains few of the aspects that I have long believed are necessary for successful literary fiction; yet if it did have them, this novel wouldn’t be nearly as propulsive as it is. The book’s simple language immerses the reader immediately and breathlessly in the terror and difficulty of Lydia and Luca’s flight. The uncomplicated moral universe allows us to read it as a thriller with real-life stakes. The novel’s polemical architecture gives a single very forceful and efficient drive to the narrative. And the greatest animating spirit of the novel is the love between Lydia and Luca: It shines its blazing light on all the desperate migrants and feels true and lived.

“American Dirt” seems deeply aware of the discrepancies in power between the desperate people it describes, and both the writer who created it and the reader intended to receive it; the book offers itself as testament to the fact Cummins has worked to decrease this power differential. The major objection to cultural appropriation has always been about the abuse of power: inadequate research, halfhearted imagination and a lack of respect, the privileged assumption of the right to speak on behalf of people who are perfectly capable of speaking for themselves. In her afterword, Cummins relates that she did tremendous research, traveling extensively, interviewing many people, sitting with her material in utter seriousness for four years. Still, writers like Myriam Gurba have brought up concerns with the novel, saying that it trucks in stereotypes of Mexico as a place of danger while the United States is always envisioned as a place of safety, that these stereotypes could inadvertently give fuel to the far right in their contempt for Mexicans. At the same time, other Mexican-American and Latina writers are speaking out in support of the book, people like Sandra Cisneros, Julia Alvarez and Erika Sánchez.

It’s true that because this book’s aims are polemical, its intended audience is clearly not the migrants described in it, who — having already lived its harrowing experience — would have no need to relive it in fiction. “American Dirt” is written for people like me, those native to the United States who are worried about what is happening at our southern border but who have never felt the migrants’ fear and desperation in their own bodies. This novel is aimed at people who have loved a child and who would fight with everything they have to see that child be allowed a good future. Cummins’s stated intention is not to speak for migrants but to speak while standing next to them, loudly enough to be heard by people who don’t want to hear.

Fiction is the art of delicately sketching the internal lives of others, of richly and believably projecting readers into lives not their own. Writers can and should write about anything that speaks urgently to them, but they should put their work into the world only if they’re able to pull off their intentions responsibly. In the end, I find myself deeply ambivalent. Perhaps this book is an act of cultural imperialism; at the same time, weeks after finishing it, the novel remains alive in me. When I think of the migrants at the border, suffering and desperate, I think of Lydia and Luca, and feel something close to bodily pain. “American Dirt” was written with good intentions, and like all deeply felt books, it calls its imagined ghosts into the reader’s real flesh.

Lauren Groff’s most recent book is “Florida,” a story collection.

AMERICAN DIRT
By Jeanine Cummins
383 pp. Flatiron Books. $27.99.

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