politalX Politics Store - Their Darkest Hour: People Tested to the Extreme in WWII
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List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £5.59
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
Manufacturer: Ebury Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780091917593
ISBN: 009191759X
Label: Ebury Press
Manufacturer: Ebury Press
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2008-06-05
Publisher: Ebury Press
Studio: Ebury Press
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking trip to the dark side.
Comment: This is a simply superb read. Mr Rees really gets into the minds of the people he has interviewed for this book. It does not matter if he is interviewing sadistic Nazi SS guards, American bomb aimers, Japanese prisoner of war survivors or failed Kamikaze pilots - his ability to coax important and revealing information is second to none. Even, though, the author is disturbed by the stories he listens to, he manages to maintain a professional approach throughout - with a consistent degree of empathy and understanding for people truly tested to the extreme.
You do not have to be an ardent WW2 obsessive to like this book. No, it is not full of grand strategy or maps. Just simple, human stories, well told and full of tragedy. It is easy reading but will leave you pondering your own mentality towards life after the final page has been read. This, I suspect, was the reason for the book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not my lightest one either
Comment: The trouble with reading too many books about our dark periods of history is the lowering effect it can have on the rest of ones life. Loved ones become accustomed to lectures over breakfast on the iniquities of Nazi Germany. Squabbling children are reminded about the consequences of unbridled human aggression. Family shopping trips are punctuated by laments on the consumerist nature of today's culture. After a literary diet of "Auschwitz" and "Their Darkest Hour", it's back to the Moomintrolls and Clive James for me. That or I'll find myself banished to the Sunnydays asylum for over-serious wives and mothers.
But I digress. "Their Darkest Hour" is a fine piece of work and a very necessary read for anyone trying to understand the lessons that a conflict like WWII might teach us. Rees has used the source material from his other historical works to construct a readable, thoughtful and intelligent assessment of what war can teach us about ourselves as humans. The lessons might seem simplistic, but if they were, we wouldn't be inclined to make the same mistakes over and over again. Obviously. And in a clever piece of journalism, Rees juxtaposes material from the various "sides" in the conflicts to demonstrate neatly and quietly, that no one culture can lay claim to evil or the capacity to commit it. We may vary in the way we express our basest instincts, but there's no blue print for producing bad behaviour, or for that matter, altruism. Shattering the smug assumptions about "goodies" and "baddies", which are almost universally fostered in WWII reporting, is one of the most important effects of this book.
So impressed am I, that I plan to read Rees' two other works: "Nazis: A Warning from History" and "Nightmare in the East" in due course. Meantime, in the interests of domestic harmony - "One grey morning the first snow began to fall in the Valley of the Moomins. It fell softly and quietly and in a few hours everything was white."
Customer Rating:
Summary: Definately Thought Provoking
Comment: This book was not what i expected, it is a series of essay with an introduction of each essay, the essays are based on the authors meetings with the people discussed. At first the book struck me as overly patronising repeating the same ideas at the start, however after the first few pages this entirely dissapates and i somewhat regret thinking that. The book is the first time that i have ever really thought about the social -rather than military and political- implications of the Second World War. At times very critical and i felt about judgemental and bias about the actual people discussed. Often describing them as murderers which i suppose they are. However at the end of the Book it does neatly some up that however disgusting peoples actions may be in the past it is Human nature, and society that is to blame. Definately worth a read and very relevant, i for one re-evaulated my life and put it in perspective after hearing about the harring tales of murder and cannibalism. Although it was the rape that really disgusted me, Masayo Enomotos description of how easy it was to do, then later on Waltraud Reski's disturbing tale of her mothers rape at the hands of the Red Army. It really makes you question how easy it is to manipulate peoples beliefs to make them do evil and yet how it is the very belief systems themselves that make people do the most heroic things, the very fact they can stand and say "i wont let this happen" Definately worth a read. In the end this is one mans opinion of peoples circumstances, but he does also give you the evidence to make up your own minds. You can tell he worked hard on this it is very well written, and excellently researched and indexed.
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Summary: Brilliance in simplicity
Comment: I purchased this book to work on my major A level assignment and i have to say, after years and years of analyzing books, this has to be the most simple, accesible and concise book i have read! The book consists of many interviews he has done with war time witnesses and since i was concerning myself with the holocaust, i only read the relevant interviews. Right from the start you can see that Lawrence Rees is something special. He doesnt just analyze what the person is saying to him, he gives fantastic descriptions of the person, where they met and the facial expressions that the person uses. This may seem like nothing, but when put into the context of the interview it truly makes for amazing reading.
By taking your time and really picturing the imagery provided you draw your own opinions of how truthful and in somecases purposefully vague some of the interviewees are at some points. Lawrence provides nothing short of an amazing read and leaves it open enought to draw your own conclusions but puts his own opinions in at just the right times.
Even if your not a history student, or even if your not a history fan, this book is amazing. To prove that this is not an empty statement, my friend at school (where i read most of the book) who does art and hates history couldnt keep her nose out of it! She has never studied this period or shown real interest but found it a wonderful and completely mind-opening read.
Enjoy!!
Customer Rating:
Summary: terribly sad, but so readable
Comment: Laurence Rees has travelled the world meeting people who faced extreme events during World War II. This book is a compilation of short chapters about each one of these cases.
As such it is of course somewhat lacking in depth, but on most of the cases covered there are separate full volumes which have been published which the reader could access if inclined after Rees's work.
Rees's writing still is, as always, fluent and highly readable. The devastating first-hand testimony he reports is a lasting contribution to our understanding of the now increasingly distant war and a powerful insight into the behaviour, good and bad, of human beings in crisis.
Perhaps the saddest case of all is that of Alex Kurzem, the little jewish boy adopted as a mascot by the SS, and subsequently shunned by many of his own people after the war.
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