{"id":798,"date":"2016-10-03T15:42:52","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T19:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/?p=798"},"modified":"2016-10-03T16:26:50","modified_gmt":"2016-10-03T20:26:50","slug":"reviewing-as-first-draft-of-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/2016\/10\/reviewing-as-first-draft-of-history.html","title":{"rendered":"Reviewing as First Draft of History"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week<\/strong> Michiko Kakutani reviewed the first of two volumes of the latest Hitler biography for the New York Times<\/em>. I\u2019ve got Ian Kershaw\u2019s double-decker biography, which is huge and ought suffice, but I read the review anyway, just to see what the occasion for another biography would be, short of, say, the author locating the real<\/em> Hitler diaries. <\/p>\n

He hasn\u2019t, and I finished the review no wiser about the book\u2019s raison d\u2019etre<\/em>. But Kakutani has a string of bullet points that seem to operate on more than a strictly synoptic level. A sampling:<\/p>\n

\u201c \u2022 Hitler was often described as an egomaniac who \u2018only loved himself\u2019 \u2014 a narcissist with a taste for self-dramatization and what Mr. Ullrich calls a \u2018characteristic fondness for superlatives.\u2019 His manic speeches and penchant for taking all-or-nothing risks raised questions about his capacity for self-control, even his sanity.\u2026
\n\u201c \u2022 Hitler was known, among colleagues, for a \u2018bottomless mendacity\u2019 that would later be magnified by a slick propaganda machine that used the latest technology \u2026.
\n\u201c \u2022 He peppered his speeches with coarse phrases and put-downs of hecklers. Even as he fomented chaos by playing to crowds\u2019 fears and resentments, he offered himself as the visionary leader who could restore law and order.
\n\u201c \u2022 \u2026 [Hitler] was typically vague about his actual plans. He often harked back to a golden age for the country, Mr. Ullrich says, the better \u2018to paint the present day in hues that were all the darker. Everywhere you looked now, there was only decline and decay.\u2019
\n\u201c \u2022 Hitler\u2019s repertoire of topics, Mr. Ullrich notes, was limited, and reading his speeches in retrospect, \u2018it seems amazing that he attracted larger and larger audiences\u2019 with \u2018repeated mantralike phrases\u2019 consisting largely of \u2018accusations, vows of revenge and promises for the future.\u2019\u2026.
\n\u201c \u2022 Hitler\u2019s ascension was aided and abetted by the na\u00efvet\u00e9 of domestic adversaries who failed to appreciate his ruthlessness and tenacity, and by foreign statesmen who believed they could control his aggression. Early on, revulsion at Hitler\u2019s style and appearance, Mr. Ullrich writes, led some critics to underestimate the man and his popularity, while others dismissed him as a celebrity, a repellent but fascinating \u2018evening\u2019s entertainment.\u2019 \u2026.
\n\u201c \u2022 Hitler had a dark, Darwinian view of the world. And he would not only become, in Mr. Ullrich\u2019s words, \u2018a mouthpiece of the cultural pessimism\u2019 growing in right-wing circles in the Weimar Republic, but also the avatar of what Thomas Mann identified as a turning away from reason and the fundamental principles of a civil society \u2014 namely, \u2018liberty, equality, education, optimism and belief in progress.\u2019\u201d
\nHistoriographically speaking. none of this counts as news, of course. At the same time it seems pretty clear that Kakutani is writing about<\/em> the news.
\n(full text of review<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week Michiko Kakutani reviewed the first of two volumes of the latest Hitler biography for the New York Times. I\u2019ve got Ian Kershaw\u2019s double-decker biography, which is huge and ought suffice, but I read the review anyway, just to see what the occasion for another biography would be, short of, say, the author locating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-798","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":799,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798\/revisions\/799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/quickstudy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}