I read this book as part of my preparation for our trip to Germany. It was dark and the opposite of uplifting although informative- I’m not sure I can process more depressing books like this one. Erik Larsen is a great writer and I really enjoy his books- this was no exception. This book follows Ambassador to Germany William Dodd, a University of Chicago history professor, and his family as they arrive in Berlin in 1933. At first they are enamored of the new Germany, and the ambassador’s daughter embarks of several affairs with German and then Russian officials. However their opinions change as the year proceeds and we go farther into the 1930s and Hitler’s actions against Jews and others he dislike are reported by the Ambassador to a largely deaf State Department in Washington, which is trying at all costs to avoid foreign wars. Nazis like Goerring and Goebbels appear in the book in social settings early on with some of their future behavior presaged by their actions earlier in the 30s. Reading to prepare for a trip to Germany is not as lighthearted as preparations for a trip to other locations.