Comment by firefax
1 day ago
Stasi: The Untold Story Of The East German Secret Police
https://search.worldcat.org/title/39256274
This book going into extreme detail about the East German surveillance state. People tend to hyperfocus on the Nazis due to a morbid fascination with bodycounts, but the GDR was closer in time in both history and comopositions. They had faxes, computers, and many other technologies that made them similar to us, and I worry we forget the lessons of that regime. I read his book during a middle school in school suspension and it was a formative read.
Another good book is "Eichman in Jerusalem", which details the trial of one of the architects of the Holocaust and his claims he was "just following orders... the book examines the "banality of evil".
https://search.worldcat.org/title/385389
Finally, to lighten things up, my most recent new favorite book that's fiction was Convenience Store Woman, about a woman who's been working at a 7/11 for 18 years. I read it during COVID and it's stuck with me as a favorite.
> Another good book is "Eichman in Jerusalem"
I've read at least two articles authored by historians that thought this book was full of factual errors and misunderstandings. One of them had studied Eichmann's life and correspondance, and found that he was far from the character that Hannah Arendt depicted. IIRC, the other article tried to explain her bias; I remember she hated Jerusalem and despised most people she met in Israel.
It may be good read, but don't expect the book to be fair or truthful.
>I've read at least two articles authored by historians that thought this book was full of factual errors and misunderstandings.
Feel free to provide these citations if you dislike the book
>It may be good read, but don't expect the book to be fair or truthful.
It's creative nonfiction -- a literary telling of a factual event. And no one is required to be "fair" to anyone, especially Nazis. Some things don't have "both sides".