The Splendid and the Vile - A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz

by Erik Larson

585 pgs

Erik Larson's latest, The Splendid and the Vile - A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz offers an interesting and thorough look at the leadership of one of the most successful and influential leaders of our time. It also provides a timely reminder of just how valuable a great leader can be during challenging times of uncertainty and hardship.

Winston Churchill became Prime Minister of Great Britain in May of 1940, when his predecessor resigned due to poor health. Churchill was a fairly unpopular figure at the time, within both his own Conservative Party as well as with the Labour Party, and he took over as Prime Minister at a very tenuous time in Great Britain's history.

Operation Dynamo, the operation that successfully evacuated over 300,000 Allied servicemen from Dunkirk, was only days away and France would soon surrender to Germany, which gave Hitler's army the ability to mobilize only a few miles from the coast of England. The nightly bombing campaign of London and other cities known as the Blitz would begin about four months later, which lasted over a year. But throughout it all, England and its citizens remained defiant, never faltering or wavering in their certainty that they would eventually be victorious, a conviction that was in large part a result of Churchill's leadership and ability to bring the country together under a common cause.  

As it just so happens, I finished reading the book the day after the first "Presidential" debate between Trump and Biden took place here in the U.S., and I couldn't help but reflect on the glaring contrast and deficiencies that exist between the quality of both of those men when compared with Churchill. Admittedly, Churchill was no saint, and his proclivity for wearing pink silk underwear and nothing else at times while conducting the business of Britain is questionable at the very least. But it's pretty easy to overlook the odd and slightly unsettling aspects of a leader's personal nature, when he's successfully navigating a country through the uncertain times it's facing. Unfortunately, the best we can hope for in this country right now, is a mediocre replacement for the disaster we've had for the last three and a half years.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Isaac's Storm: A Man, A Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

by Erik Larson
273 pgs

As you can tell from this blog, I read very little by authors who write non-fiction. But Erik Larson is one of the few whose books make it to my list, and each one has been worth my time. This one was no exception. Even though it's one of his earlier books, and the shortest one I've read so far, because it was written by Larson, it was both educational and entertaining at the same time.

Isaac's Storm is the historical account of the hurricane that hit Galveston Texas in 1900, killing somewhere between 6,000 and 12,000 people, making it the deadliest natural disaster in United States History. Isaac Cline was the chief meteorologist at the U.S. weather Bureau's Galveston office at the time, and it was his belief that the Galveston area would never lie in the path of a hurricane. He had made his belief known in newspaper articles prior to 1900, so hen reports started coming in of the storm in the Gulf of Mexico, Cline didn't raise the alarm until it was too late for people to take steps to protect themselves.

Larson does an excellent job of not only detailing the storm and its devastation, he also does an admirable job of breathing life back to many of the people who lived in Galveston at the time, whose lives either ended, or were forever changed by the storm.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Thunderstruck

by Erik Larson
463 pgs

I read very little non-fiction. Maybe two or three books out of every one hundred I read is non-fiction. I think the reason I favor fiction so much more is that I read primarily to be entertained, not to learn. It’s a little sad, now that I think about it, but I don’t anticipate changing anytime soon. So, the non-fiction I do read also tends to be entertaining. Erik Larson’s books are perfect examples.

Larson has a great talent for taking an event or a time in history and dissecting it into fascinating bits of information, and then reassembling them into a narrative that is both compelling and informative. A great example is The Devil in the White City in which he details the series of grisly murders which took place in Chicago during the 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition. He does a very similar thing with Thunderstruck, in which he recounts two events from history: the scientific discovery and utilization of wireless telegraphy (radio waves), which took place at the turn of the 20^th century and the infamous murder known as the “Crippen case,” and shows how inseparably connected those two events were to each other.

In the late 1890s Guglielmo Marconi developed the world’s first device that could transmit signals wirelessly. At first his device was only able to transmit communications from one side of a room to the other, but eventually he was able to develop the technology enough to transmit messages across the Atlantic Ocean, and ultimately around the world. It was a technology that revolutionized the world.

At the same time Marconi was developing radio technology, Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen, a quiet unassuming man who was married to a loud, overbearing, socialite of a wife, was systematically plotting her death. It was a murder which years later would be the inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window,” and one that Crippen undoubtedly would have gotten away with, if it hadn’t been for Marconi.

I have yet to read a book by Larson that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone without reservation. In a time when we take for granted the ability to communicate with anyone and obtain information from anywhere in the world without effort, it was fascinating to learn the origins of the technology. The fact that its history was tied to one of the most notorious cases of mariticide in British history was an added bonus.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America

by Erik Larson
390 pgs

I don't read a lot of non-fiction, it’s not because I don’t enjoy it. More often than not, I enjoy it very much. But it usually doesn’t draws me in to the point where I don’t want to put the book down--like a good novel often does. Erik Larson's books—at least the two I’ve read so far—have been exceptions to the rule.

The Devil in the White City is about two men: Daniel H. Burnham and H.H. Holmes, two very different men, whose lives were tied to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. The former was the architect of the fair, the latter a serial killer.

The fair stretched to more than 600 acres in size and contained close to 200 new buildings; all painted white, which gave it the name the "White City." It included the world's first Ferris Wheel, which was 80 meters high, had 36 cars, and could hold over 1,400 people when fully loaded. Close to 26 million people attended the fair, which lasted for six months, from May through October of 1893. Visitors included Harry Houdini, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Scott Joplin, Clarence Darrow, Helen Keller, Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, Annie Oakley, Susan B. Anthony, and Buffalo Bill Cody.

The fair introduced the world to "moving pictures," zippers, automatic dishwashers, Juicy Fruit gum, Cracker Jack, Aunt Jemima, Shredded Wheat, and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. It would be remembered as one of the most influential events in history.

H.H. Holmes's connection to the fair would not be realized until quite some time after the fair concluded, but his story is as interesting and compelling as the fair's is. At the time of the fair, the accounts of Jack the Ripper were only a few years old. The world was fascinated by this new kind of killer, the serial killer. And while Jack was known to have killed five women, researches estimate Holmes killed at least nine, and as many as two hundred. Holmes used the draw of the fair to lure unsuspecting women from all over the country to his hotel, many of whom would never be heard from again.

The Devil in the White City is an excellent book. It reads like a historical novel, and the fact that it's not, makes it that much more compelling.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin

by Erik Larson
434 pgs

In In the Garden of Beasts, Erik Larson tells the story of William Dodd, the United States’ Ambassador to Germany during the 1930s. He describes his background and seemingly lack of qualifications for the appointment Roosevelt gave him during one of the most pivotal periods in modern history.

Dodd was an historian who earned his Ph.D. in Leipzig 40 years earlier. He never had high aspirations and was considered something of a lightweight and a joke by his fellow American diplomats. Although Dodd did not look forward to his ambassadorship, at the age of 64, he figured Germany might provide a quiet safe place for him to finish his latest writing project. So he decided to accept the appointment and moved with his wife, son, and daughter Martha to Berlin.

He was also a very unassuming and modest man. He didn’t enjoy the lavish parties thrown by heads of state, nor did he want to be chauffeured around Germany in an expensive car. In fact, Dodd had his old Chevy sent over to Germany--which he drove himself--and made the decision to rent his residence at a discount from its Jewish owner. At a time when the ruling parties in Germany respected only power and assertiveness, Dodd was the exact opposite of who should have been sent at the time.

Soon after arriving, Dodd and his family began witnessing the escalating violence and discrimination against Jews in Berlin. He saw the efforts being made to strip Jews of their German citizenship along with a myriad of other steps being taken by the Nazi Party to dehumanize Jews and force them out of German society.

As time progressed, and as Dodd became more and more concerned with the direction he saw Germany heading, he repeatedly communicated his concerns back to President Roosevelt, who seemed to respect Dodd, but repeatedly dismissed him and his reports in favor of guidance he was receiving from members of his cabinet.

Larson does a great job of showing the ineffectiveness of Dodd’s ambassadorship. But he balances that by positioning him as a man who always stayed true to his own convictions and never wavered in his assessment of what he was witnessing, even when the rest of the world ridiculed and dismissed him. In hindsight Dodd can now be seen as a singular voice of warning. One that was ignored with consequences.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

by Erik Larson
430 pgs

On May 7, 1915, the Lusitania was sunk 11 miles off the coast of Ireland by a German submarine. Only one torpedo was needed to sink the ship, the largest and fastest passenger steamer of its era, and those on board had a mere 18 minutes before the ship was completely submerged. In all, 1,191 of its 1,962 passengers and crewmembers were killed, including approximately 130 U.S. citizens. It was an attack that played a major role in ending the United States' position of neutrality before it became involved in World War I. 

Erik Larson provides a fascinating history of the ship, its passengers and crewmembers, as well as a detailed account of its final voyage from New York to Liverpool, England--its intended destination. His account highlights the myriad of decisions and factors that played a key role in the ship's demise, including: the design of the ship, the decision to set sail just days after the German's had issued a warning that passenger ships were considered "fair game" for their submarines, the decision by the British government not to provide a military escort for the ship once it approached waters known to be patrolled by German U-boats, and the decisions made by the ship's captain that ultimately put the Lusitania in the exact spot it was in when the U-boat's captain raised its periscope and saw her. Larson highlights the fact that if any one of those factors or decisions had been different, the Lusitania probably would have made it to Liverpool unscathed, and the U.S. might not have ever entered the war.

Larson has written other historical books, including his bestseller The Devil in the White City, but Dead Wake is the first I've read. Based on how good Dead Wake was, I'm more excited than ever to read his others.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆