When the United States entered the Gilded Age after the Civil War; argues cultural historian Christopher Benfey; the nation lost its philosophical moorings and looked eastward to “Old Japan;†with its seemingly untouched indigenous culture; for balance and perspective. Japan; meanwhile; was trying to reinvent itself as a more cosmopolitan; modern state; ultimately transforming itself; in the course of twenty-five years; from a feudal backwater to an international power. This great wave of historical and cultural reciprocity between the two young nations; which intensified during the late 1800s; brought with it some larger-than-life personalities; as the lure of unknown foreign cultures prompted pilgrimages back and forth across the Pacific.In The Great Wave; Benfey tells the story of the tightly knit group of nineteenth-century travelers—connoisseurs; collectors; and scientists—who dedicated themselves to exploring and preserving Old Japan. As Benfey writes; “A sense of urgency impelled them; for they were convinced—Darwinians that they were—that their quarry was on the verge of extinction.â€These travelers include Herman Melville; whose Pequod is “shadowed by hostile and mysterious Japanâ€; the historian Henry Adams and the artist John La Farge; who go to Japan on an art-collecting trip and find exotic adventures; Lafcadio Hearn; who marries a samurai’s daughter and becomes Japan’s preeminent spokesman in the West; Mabel Loomis Todd; the first woman to climb Mt. Fuji; Edward Sylvester Morse; who becomes the world’s leading expert on both Japanese marine life and Japanese architecture; the astronomer Percival Lowell; who spends ten years in the East and writes seminal works on Japanese culture before turning his restless attention to life on Mars; and President (and judo enthusiast) Theodore Roosevelt. As well; we learn of famous Easterners come West; including Kakuzo Okakura; whose The Book of Tea became a cult favorite; and Shuzo Kuki; a leading philosopher of his time; who studied with Heidegger and tutored Sartre.Finally; as Benfey writes; his meditation on cultural identity “seeks to capture a shared mood in both the Gilded Age and the Meiji Era; amid superficial promise and prosperity; of an overmastering sense of precariousness and impending peril.â€From the Hardcover edition.
#135301 in Books Richard Rhodes 2003-08-12 2003-08-12Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.00 x .70 x 5.20l; .80 #File Name: 0375708227368 pagesMasters of Death The SS Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. A rare historyBy Thomas M. MageeThis book is a rare find. It covers a piece of World War Two that most books gloss over at best. This book offers up a very detailed history of the infamous SS Einsatzgruppen troops. These were the special units the SS put together to go into occupied Eastern Europe to kill Jews. The book offers a great deal of information about these units. The book is full of horrific story after horrific story about the work of these units. The way the stories are told is very enlightening. They are told almost like a news story; as they unfold. That makes the story come more alive; and thus more scary. The abundance of these stories is almost overwhelming. It is told through various first person accounts with graphic detail.This book doesn't stop there. The book describes how they came together. It dives into the details of the emotional aspect of the killing on the troops. What they did as a unit did impact them as individuals. I found that very interesting. The killing toll drove the men crazy. It created a blood lust of sorts. The guilt weighted heavy on them. They either became 24/7 drunks or individual homicidal manics. The lack of speed of killing in the eyes of their Berlin HQ led them to create "the final solution". That is the death camp system.The down side of the book is the lack of the big picture. The story gets lost of the blood filled stories. The ending epilogue chapter is very interesting too. The author gives a break down of what happened to the various key personnel of the groups. I think this book has to be the only one like it or definitely one of a few.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. I especially liked the way Rhodes couches the development of the killers ...By Daniel HerkesTremendously well researched and reasoned analysis of the Einsatzgruppen during WW2. Warning this is an unpleasant subject that I could only read for about an hour at a time. Himmler and Heydrich were monsters of a sort that we might never see again. I especially liked the way Rhodes couches the development of the killers malefic behavior in a bona fide framework - Lonnie Athens stages of violent development. Great book.2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. "Masters of Death" written by a Master of HistoryBy Joshua LevitonRichard Rhodes has further solidified himself as one of my favorite authors with his work "Masters of Death." After reading is world-reknowned "The Making of the Atomic Bomb;" I was eager to read more of his work. As a student of the Holocaust and World War II; I knew the book would be incredibly powerful and informative. The book looks not only at the historical aspects of the Nazi-created genocide and killing machine of the 1940's but looks at the "human element" involved in undertaking such a brutal; cruel and inhumane operation. He delves into how the Nazi's looked to lessen the impact of the mass killings on those who committed them and protect the sanity of German soldiers.A thorough; well-researched; often horrific book because it explains how the Holocaust; supposedly initiated by monsters; was entirely too human.Thank you; Richard Rhodes; for giving readers another masterpiece of history.
