Andrew Nagorski

I found this to be interesting in a few parts but mostly pretty boring. You need to be a Freud geek to really get into it. Nagorski is a great writer and so it's not a chore to read. It's the sort of book you come for the rescue story and stay for the biography of Freud's life, it basically delivers, but Freud's life is not hugely interesting (outside his work) and the escape not that exciting. Meanwhile the chapter-length biographies of people in his inner circle are forgettable. It interesting his daughter was a crypto-lesbian but Freud never analyzed that. Freud saw everything through the lens of sex so there are some salacious details about clients to keep it lively in parts.… (mehr)

1941 was the year that decided WWII. Recall when 1941 started, Germany possessed France and Poland uncontested; the US was not at war with Germany or Japan; Germany had not invaded Russia and Stalin was convinced he and Hitler could conquer the world together. Britain's future as an independent country was actually in doubt, depending on what happened next. By the year's end, it looked like familiar WWII: Germany was stuck in a quagmire of attrition with Russia; the US and Russia were allied with Britain; Japan faced the fury of American industrial might - the straws were drawn, basic economics and demographics now determined who would prevail. What went so wrong for the Axis? Nagorski pieces it together. By and large, it came down to mistakes of judgement by Hitler. There were a couple major things, but simply he gambled everything on a Blitzkrieg victory in Russia (he didn't even bother procuring winter clothing). It was not an unreasonable gamble, even within the top levels of the US government, analysts thought Russia would not last 3 months, given Germany's previous successes in Poland and France. But for many contingent reasons Germany failed to take Moscow, and Hitler piled mistake on mistake by micro-managing his generals, dispersing his forces, and ramping up moral and criminal outrages which turned erstwhile allies into devout opposition. It took another 3.5 years for the Axis to crash, this was the year it went off the rails.… (mehr)