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What are you reading? September 2, 2022 [1]
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Date: 2022-09-02
, I note what I’m reading and comment...you note what you are reading and comment. Occasionally, I may add a section or a link related to books…
In WAYR? , I note what I’m reading and comment...you note what you are reading and comment. Occasionally, I may add a section or a link related to books…
I am finished reading:
End of a Berlin Diary : 1944-1947 by William L. Shirer - Finished both volumes.
I need a sec…
I’ve noted before that I read Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich as a 20-year old unemployed man living in Washington D.C. Being unemployed allowed me to read all 1,200 pages in about 4 days. I do remember being perfectly horrified at what was depicted, impressed with the detailed historical record but…
I think about my reaction now and I am certain that I viewed Rise and Fall as being a bit...cartoonish. I mean, I didn’t disbelieve anything that Shirer wrote but much of what I had been reading prior to that reading of Rise and Fall consisted of mystery and horror novels and I am certain that some of the conventions of that genre of fiction influenced how I read that magnum opus (I read Toni Morrison’s Beloved in a similar fashion.)
I had not experienced much, personally, at that time about the ability of humans to be inhumane to other humans. Nor did I know much about how to sort and range through a historical record (at least not as much as I do now).
Needless to say, in spite of my awareness of the past injustices of the United States, I certainly never expected to live to see the unsated bloodthirstiness of contemporary times, at least not in these United States. And that especially applies to the Trump era and, now, even beyond it.
End of a Berlin Diary: 1944-1947 reveals so many ghosts of the past haunting the world, still. It isn’t even past.
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