Nonfiction Book Discussion – Erik Larson’s “In the Garden of Beasts”
Date: 09/22/2025
Time: 06:30 pm-07:30 pm
Location: Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County, 201 N. Mulberry Street, Mount Vernon
Organizer: Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County
Cost: Free
Contact and more info:
mvknoxpubliclibrary@gmail.com
https://www.knox.net
About the event:
In 1933, William E. Dodd, a mild-mannered professor from Chicago, became America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany.
He took his family to Berlin. Initially, they were entranced by the the pomp and grandeur of the New German Reich. They witnessed firsthand the restoration of Germany to world prominence.
Then they witnessed other things.
Persecution. Censorship. Extreme and violent nationalism.
But Dodd’s reports were largely ignored by the U.S. State Department.
In his usual fashion, Erik Larsonwields a range of sources to present a complex and nuanced story of an American family in the midst of a nation that was on the verge of something grand and horrific.
How did it happen? Why did so few oppose it sooner? Could such a thing ever happen again?
Read the book. We should talk about it.