Germans Into Nazis
Peter Fritzsche
I tried not to dismiss this book immediately upon arrival, and, to be fair, its second half far outshines its first. Unfortunately, however, that is only because the second half of the book is mildly coherent and proves that Fritzsche understands that it is usually not to one's advantage to undermine one's own argument whilst searching for it. The summary at the end of the book actually confused me, as well- it would have been nice for Fritzsche to actually make the argument he strings together at the end of the book somewhere before, oh, say, the book's last ten pages. Maybe if the two main halves of the book were connected in some meaningful way, instead of jumping from the end of World War I to 1933 and attempting to prove correlation.
The main problem with the book is its lack of organization, which trumps its unbearable dullness for the win. Fritzsche is on to a good idea by describing representative pictures, but they are used as jumping points from which to go backwards, confusing even informed readers. The first half of the book successfully makes a point, only to completely reverse it a paragraph later. Acknowledging flaws in your argument generally makes your work seem stronger, but Fritzsche just looks like a buffoon trying to string everything together haphazardly. The book makes several useful points, but its frenetic frenzy makes any arguments lurking beneath the surface impossible to find and dissect. Fritzsche takes one of the most interesting and important questions of the twentieth century and bores me (of all people) with it. Boo hiss.
Grade: D
Peter Fritzsche
I tried not to dismiss this book immediately upon arrival, and, to be fair, its second half far outshines its first. Unfortunately, however, that is only because the second half of the book is mildly coherent and proves that Fritzsche understands that it is usually not to one's advantage to undermine one's own argument whilst searching for it. The summary at the end of the book actually confused me, as well- it would have been nice for Fritzsche to actually make the argument he strings together at the end of the book somewhere before, oh, say, the book's last ten pages. Maybe if the two main halves of the book were connected in some meaningful way, instead of jumping from the end of World War I to 1933 and attempting to prove correlation.
The main problem with the book is its lack of organization, which trumps its unbearable dullness for the win. Fritzsche is on to a good idea by describing representative pictures, but they are used as jumping points from which to go backwards, confusing even informed readers. The first half of the book successfully makes a point, only to completely reverse it a paragraph later. Acknowledging flaws in your argument generally makes your work seem stronger, but Fritzsche just looks like a buffoon trying to string everything together haphazardly. The book makes several useful points, but its frenetic frenzy makes any arguments lurking beneath the surface impossible to find and dissect. Fritzsche takes one of the most interesting and important questions of the twentieth century and bores me (of all people) with it. Boo hiss.
Grade: D
1 comment:
"Decisive plurality"!
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