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| Document Type: | Book |
|---|---|
| All Authors / Contributors: |
Lara Feigel |
| ISBN: | 9781632865519 1632865513 9781408845325 1408845326 9781408845332 1408845334 |
| OCLC Number: | 918283738 |
| Notes: | "First published in Great Britain 2016"--Title page verso. |
| Description: | xi, 443 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm |
| Contents: | The battle for Germany, 1944-45 : "Setting out for a country that didn't really exist": crossing the Siegfried Line, November-December 1944 ; "Nazi Germany is doomed": advance into Germany, January-April 1945 ; "We were blind and unbelieving and slow": Victory, April-May 1945 -- Ruin and reconstruction, May-December 1945 : "Complete chaos guaranteed": occupation, May-August 1945 ; "Berlin is boiling in sweltering summer heat": Berlin, July-October 1945 ; "A pain that hurts too much": German winter, September-December 1945 -- Judgement and hunger, 1945-46 : "You'll hang them anyhow": Nuremberg, November 1945-March 1946 ; "Let Germany live!": fighting the peace, March-May 1946 ; "Let this trial never finish": boredom, May-August 1946 ; "The law tries to keep up with life": judgement, September-October 1946 -- Tension and revival, 1946-48 : "Their suffering, and often their bravery, make one love them": Cold War, October 1946-October 1947 ; "I've been the Devil's General on earth too long": artistic enlightenment, November 1947-January 1948 ; "In Hell too there are these luxuriant gardens": Germany in California, January-June 1948 -- Divided Germany, 1948-49 : "If this is a war who is our enemy?": The Berlin Airlift, June 1948-May 1949 ; "Perhaps our deaths will shock you into attention": division, May-October 1949 -- Coda: "Closing time in the gardens of the West." |
| Responsibility: | Lara Feigel. |
| More information: |
Abstract:
Reviews
Publisher Synopsis
The Bitter Taste of Victory is more than a group biography. Threaded throughout is the role of culture in a nation's psyche ... Urgent, absorbing, and quietly devastating, The Bitter Taste of Victory is a superb achievement. Few books catch so well the strange energy of the war's immediate aftermath, the half-crazed adrenalin and slow-burning despair -- Frances Wilson * Daily Telegraph * Feigel entwines politics and passion, the wide screen of history and the close-up of desire among the ruins ... Always illuminating and richly textured -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent * In this panoramic book, which manages to blend a grand historical sweep with fascinating personal detail, Lara Feigel succeeds brilliantly in capturing life in post-war Germany, as filtered through the eyes of British and American intellectuals ... Feigel does a brilliant job of shining a spotlight on this complicated moral universe. Without pause or stumble she takes us from champagne receptions to bombed-out factories. Along the way we meet a fascinating cast of characters, all attempting to make sense of a unique historical moment, one where the distinction between good and evil is no longer clear for all to see -- Kathryn Hughes * Mail on Sunday * Stealing up from the mound of corpses and fallen masonry come glamour, famous names and an account of the collapse of the most famous literary relationships of the mid-twentieth century, the marriage between Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn ... She [Lara Feigel] is excellent on the constant attempts to domesticate the evil that welled up on all sides ... the long-term cultural consequences of 1939-1945 are still being worked out, but this is a fascinating account of the early field work that kicked them into gear -- D. J. Taylor * The Times * Well researched and beautifully written -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times * An ambitious book, ranging across a sea of events and characters and filled with enjoyable details -- Caroline Moorehead * Literary Review * Feigel has an affinity with rubble... a scholarly and engrossing book -- Robert McCrum * Observer * A brilliant depiction of the Allies' encounter with the broken soul of Germany -- Juliet Gardiner Lara Feigel's absorbing book relives the era in all its uncertainty, and delves into the irreconcilable differences and contradictions that would come to thwart the project ... She makes a sympathetic narrator, and has certainly unearthed some fascinating material -- Anthony Quinn * Guardian * Innovative, entertaining and worthwhile * Daily Express * Inimitable ... In part, it is a story of personal reconstruction, particularly of the Mann family members, but in another sense it is a story of failure, of missed opportunity ... A masterful job ... This is uniquely nuanced history * Booklist * Compelling * RTE * A fascinating story, brilliantly told -- Simon Shaw * Mail on Sunday * Read more...
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Related Subjects:(11)
- Denazification.
- Reconstruction (1939-1951)
- Europe -- Intellectual life -- 20th century.
- Europe -- Social conditions -- 20th century.
- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY -- Literary.
- HISTORY -- Europe -- Germany.
- HISTORY -- Military -- World War II.
- Intellectual life.
- Social conditions.
- Europe.
- Reconstruction (1939-1951) -- Europe.
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