Books

Reviews of entire books – brochures, monographs, anthologies.

Mastering Germany’s Difficult Past

Der Nasenring: Im Dickicht der Vergangenbeitsbewältigung (“The Nose Ring: In the Thicket of Mastering the Past”), by Armin Mohler. Essen: Heitz & Höffkes, 1989. (Revised and expanded edition published in 1991 by Verlag Langen Müller, Munich.) Softcover. 256 pages. Index. ISBN: 3-926650-26-5. Armin Mohler, the Swiss-born author who has lived for many years in Germany,…

On Pressac: History by Night or in Fog?

Editor’s introduction Considerable attention has been devoted during the past year to a book on “The Crematories of Auschwitz” by French pharmacist Jean-Claude Pressac. Published in September 1993, it has been widely praised for providing definitive proof that the “Holocaust deniers” are wrong. For example, The New Yorker (Nov. 15, p. 73) commented that Pressac…

Behind “Khrushchev Remembers”

One of the more interesting escapades of the Cold War was the publication in the early 1970s of the book Khrushchev Remembers. The circumstance surrounding the publication of the memoirs of [then-retired former Soviet premier] Nikita Khrushchev under the guidance of Time, Inc., were mysterious and mystifying. Khrushchev's thoughts had been secretly taped in the…

Comprehensive Biography Examines Lives of Indian Nationalist Leaders

Brothers Against the Raj: A Biography of Indian Nationalists Sarat and Subhas Chandra Bose, by Leonard A. Gordon. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. Softcover. 807 pages. Photographs. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $25.00. ISBN 0-231-07443-3. Srinidhi Anantharamiah was born in 1967 in Bombay, India. He holds a bachelor's degree from Rutgers University (business, 1989), and a…

Novel Traces Wartime Exodus of German Mennonites

The Wanderers, by Ingrid Rimland. Stockton, Calif.: Crystal Books (2731 Lost Creek Court, Stockton, CA 95207), 1988. Softcover. 304 pages. Most Journal readers are at least sketchily aware of the vast and criminal expulsions of more than 14 million Germans from their ancestral homes in the heart of Europe, planned, ordered, and facilitated by American,…

American Historian Looks At “Ethnic Cleansing” of Germans

The German Expellees: Victims in War and Peace, by Alfred-Maurice de Zayas. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993. 200 pages. 24 Photographs. Map. Notes. Bibliography. Index. ISBN 0-312-09097-8. (Available from the IHR for $35.00, plus $2.00 shipping.) Robert Clive is the pen name of an American specialist of the political, diplomatic and military history of…

Jean-Claude Pressac’s New Auschwitz Book

During the last several months, quite a lot of attention has been devoted to a new book on “The Crematories of Auschwitz” by French pharmacist Jean-Claude Pressac. Published in late September by France’s National Center for Scientific Research, it supposedly provides definitive proof that the “Holocaust deniers” are wrong. An Associated Press article that has…

Shaping American Thinking Through the Silver Screen

Screening History, by Gore Vidal. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Univ. Press, 1992. Hardcover. 97 pages. Photographs. ISBN 0-674-79586-5. Few contemporary American writers pretending to serious literature have boasted as wide a range of concerns, poses, feuds and accomplishments as Gore Vidal. He’s run the gamut from littérateur (novelist, playwright, essayist, screenwriter) to unsuccessful politician (Democratic candidate…

Seasoned British Journalist Names Names in Account of Massacre of Russia’s Imperial Family

The Last Days of the Romanovs, by Robert Wilton. Introduction by Mark Weber. Institute for Historical Review, 1993. Softcover. 194 (+ xvii) pages. Photographs. Map. Index. ISBN 0-939484-47-1. (Available from the IHR for $12.95, plus $2 shipping.) Mary Ball Martinez was an accredited member of the Vatican press corps from 1973 to 1988, reporting for…

A Prominent German Historian Tackles Taboos of Third Reich History

Streitpunkte: Heutige und künftige Kontroversen um den Nationalsozialismus (“Points of Contention: Current and Future Controversies about National Socialism”), by Ernst Nolte. Berlin and Frankfurt: Propyläen, 1993. Hardcover. 492 pages. Notes. Index. ISBN: 3-549-05234-0. Almost half a century after its dramatic demise, the Third Reich continues to fascinate millions and provoke heated discussion. Historians, sociologists, journalists…

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