I just finished reading Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts, a non-fiction piece set in Nazi Germany during the year 1933. I love historical fiction and non-fiction (as those of you who have read Book II: The Revelations may have guessed), and especially any stories around World War II. This was an engrossing story centering on the newly-appointed American ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, and his family, as they arrive in the radically-changing Berlin in 1933. Dodd, a professor from the University of Chicago, is clearly not part of the privileged and moneyed “old boy” network that comprised the U.S. diplomatic/ambassador corps at the time. Initially, Dodd was rather hopelessly optimistic of being able to work with Hitler and his government, but after continued reports of persecutions of Jews and unbelievably repressive laws were enacted in order to eliminate Jews from German society, Dodd’s warnings were ignored by a rather haughty and pretentious State Department. Also told from the viewpoint of Dodd’s flamboyant and audacious daughter Martha, we receive intimate portraits of various well-known Nazi officials such as Rudolf Diels, Goebbels, Goring, and Hitler himself. While hindsight is always 20/20, it is amazing while reading the story how lax and indifferent the international community was as increasingly horrifying reports streamed out of Germany as Hitler consolidated his power. While no one could have likely predicted the horrors of concentration camps and gas ovens still to come, the story is an important lesson to learn and remember of power unchecked and the dangers of sitting idly by and turning a blind eye to some hard truths. While a good story, it was also somewhat anti-climactic and not as good as Larson’s The Devil in the White City. Still, looking forward to reading Larson’s latest, Dead Wake.