In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin - Erik Larson This is the newest book by the author who wrote The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America. If you are a history aficionado like me, especially if you are intrigued by Germany during the time of the Third Reich, then this is the book for you. Through the eyes of the American ambassador to Berlin and his adult daughter, Mr. Larson shows in stunning fashion how the world was determined to ignore the warning signs, and thus the true intent of Hitler and the Nazi regime in Germany, until it was too late.

Even the main characters in the book, Ambassador Dodd and his daughter Martha, were mesmerized by Hitler and the leading characters of the Third Reich in the beginning. Eventually their dealings with the leaders of the Nazi Party, SA, SS, and Gestapo convinced even them that Hitler was a danger to the world. Unfortunately no one back home was listening. The US isolationist policy after WWI, the amount of money owed to Wall Street investors by Germany, and the fact that Ambassador Dodd was viewed as an outsider by the good old boys of the US State Department, conspired to allow the US to largely ignore anything that Dodd had to say about Hitler.

I learned so much about Hitler and the forces that allowed him to get entrenched by reading this book. There was so much information, I had to read it much slower than I usually read. I would read a chapter and have to mull it over before I could go on. This is my first book by Larson, but I am totally excited to read the other 3 now.

This book certainly told a powerful tale. I am giving this one 5 stars, not because I loved the story, but because it made an impact on me and I will continue to think of it for quite a while.