In the Garden of Beasts

Title: In the Garden of Beasts

Author: Erik Larson

Pages: 448

Genre: History, Non-Fiction

Grade: B+

Synopsis: William E. Dodd is an academic from Chicago when he is named as America's first ambassador to Hitler's Germany.  He arrives in Germany in 1933 and is immediately surprised by the opulent expectations of him.  He is determined to only live off of his annual salary, but most ambassadors (and even others in the State Department) come from families with deep pockets and are used to having chauffeurs, servants, cooks, etc.  While Dodd doesn't immediately recognize the threat of the Nazis, once he does he tries to convey the risks and threats back home to America. Most of his warnings are ignored as the US public is mostly interested in a policy of isolationism. As is often the case in Larson's books, there is a second story-line, that of Ambassador Dodd's daughter Martha, who sleeps her way around Berlin with other dignitaries, communists and even some from Hitler's staff.

My Review: This is a book about Hitler's Germany, but focuses more on his rise in the 1930's, which is a time period that I'm not too familiar with.  It was interesting to read about how the German people were slowly acclimated to Hitler's crazy policies and ideas.  He would move things two step forward, apologize and step back, then take another two steps forward, with a few large leaps thrown in.  A good lesson on warnings flags to watch out for.

The Devil in the White City

Title: The Devil in the White City

Author: Erik Larson

Pages: 10 discs? (I don't remember)

Genre: History

Grade: B+

Synopsis: The World's Columbian Exposition (i.e. World's Fair) of 1893 was held in Chicago to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus' arrival in America. This book intertwines the story of the architect Daniel Burnham's struggles to get the fair off the ground in such a compressed time frame and Henry H. Holmes and his World's Fair Hotel just west of the Jackson Park Fairgrounds. Architecturally and from a design standpoint, the buildings and grounds of the fair are simply amazing. More or less in 18 months, the swampy Jackson Park was transformed into a beautiful white city lighted entirely with electric lights (the first place for this to be done). Huge buildings were built to house the different booths with the crown jewel being the first Ferris Wheel. On the other hand, H.H. Holmes' hotel was originally built as a torture palace with dissection tables, gas chambers and a crematorium. All through the fair (and before and after) he would lure young women into his confidence before killing and dissecting them.

My Review: As a design engineer, I especially enjoyed the chapters where the design and construction of the Ferris Wheel was discussed. The Paris Exposition of 1889 had been a huge success with the Eiffel Tower and Chicago needed something great to follow it up. The original Ferris Wheel was huge. It stood 264 feet tall and had 36 compartments capable of carrying 60 people. Nobody had ever seen such a structure, yet the Ferris Wheel turned out to arguably be the strongest structure in the park. H.H. Holmes was one of the first serial killers in the US and almost went undetected had he not made a couple crucial errors. His story, while disturbing, was also very interesting. I also enjoyed random little historical nuggets that are scattered throughout the book from the Pledge of Allegiance being written for the fair's dedication day to descriptions of Walt Disney's father working on the fairgrounds and telling stories to his son about the White City (possibly helping Disney to create his vision of Disneyland).

Disclaimer: This book obviously gets pretty gruesome as it goes into as much detail as is known of the many murders Holmes' committed.