An American Family

Rating:
Summary: This book turns scholarly research into living stories.
Review: This book humanized history by relating the stories of Natalie Rothstein's emigrant ancestors, and her parents, to events in Europe and the U.S. over the past hundred years. The author has turned scholarly research into living, breathing stories. It was fascinating to me, a non-Jew, to see how the succeeding generations of American Jews yearn to know and appreciate those who have gone before. I have often observed something similar in Hawaii, where I live now. Like Rothstein, people who are three and four generations away from the Orient often return to their ancestral villages in China, Japan, the Philippines and Korea for visits at least once. I felt the same way when I finally got to England.

The book takes on a more immediate tone when we reach Rothstein's own era. Through her eyes, we experience the Thirties, Forties and Fifties. She reminds us of famous Jews in every walk of life.

Most interesting to me were the years she and her Army captain husband spent in rural Germany with their three children. He was a doctor at an Army base. What mixed emotions they felt as Americans and Jews in the country so recently dominated by Hitler and his Nazis! She's a wonderful writer, observant and thoughtful. We get the viewpoint of a well-rounded modern American woman, refreshing in these days of trashy ghost-written bimbo biographies.

An American Family reminded me somewhat of Barbara Tuchman's books (Guns of August and Night of the Generals) in that it fleshes out history and takes you there where and when it was happening.

Rating:
Summary: This book turns scholarly research into living stories.
Review: This book humanized history by relating the stories of Natalie Rothstein's emigrant ancestors, and her parents, to events in Europe and the U.S. over the past hundred years. The author has turned scholarly research into living, breathing stories. It was fascinating to me, a non-Jew, to see how the succeeding generations of American Jews yearn to know and appreciate those who have gone before. I have often observed something similar in Hawaii, where I live now. Like Rothstein, people who are three and four generations away from the Orient often return to their ancestral villages in China, Japan, the Philippines and Korea for visits at least once. I felt the same way when I finally got to England.

The book takes on a more immediate tone when we reach Rothstein's own era. Through her eyes, we experience the Thirties, Forties and Fifties. She reminds us of famous Jews in every walk of life.

Most interesting to me were the years she and her Army captain husband spent in rural Germany with their three children. He was a doctor at an Army base. What mixed emotions they felt as Americans and Jews in the country so recently dominated by Hitler and his Nazis! She's a wonderful writer, observant and thoughtful. We get the viewpoint of a well-rounded modern American woman, refreshing in these days of trashy ghost-written bimbo biographies.

An American Family reminded me somewhat of Barbara Tuchman's books (Guns of August and Night of the Generals) in that it fleshes out history and takes you there where and when it was happening.