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Wendy

Simcha-Sophie

a lovely mishmash of opinions interspersed with moments of clarity and vision by a vegan lesbian feminist mystery-loving, history-loving reader and writer.

 

Currently reading

The More I Owe You: A Novel
Michael Sledge
The Lifelong Activist: How to Change the World without Losing Your Way
Hillary Rettig
Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire
Catriolina Mortimer-Sandilands, Bruce Erickson
Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America (Between Men--Between Women)
Lillian Faderman
The Healing Earth
Philip Sutton Chard
Revolt and Crisis in Greece: Between a Present Yet to Pass and a Future Still to Come
Dimitris Dalakoglou, Antonis Vradis

Hitler's Scientists: Science, War, and the Devil's Pact

Hitler's Scientists: Science, War, and the Devil's Pact - John Cornwell This was boring as shit. That's about all I have to say. It took me two years to read it. But I was turned off it early on for the author's take on Hitler's alleged vegetarianism. I have seen it said Hitler was a veg, and I have also seen it that he ate pheasant. Therefore, he was not a vegetarian. Regardless of whether he was, the author presents Hitler as an ignoramus who thought he knew all about science but did not -- and this does not seem farfetched to me -- but the section at the beginning where Cornwell is sort of listing Hitler's foibles, "proving," so to speak, his instability or lack of grasp on reality, includes vegetarianism. As if vegetarianism is some bizarre behavior of people who have little grip on reality.
I take exception to this because, of course, it's not true. Vegetarians have more of a grip on reality than omnivores. Also, that it's most likely untrue that Hitler was a vegetarian (he banned all German vegetarian groups when he took office) makes me doubt the research/validity of the rest of Cromwell's book. How can you trust an author who most likely gets this simple fact wrong? So that did not dispose me kindly toward whatever else Cornwell wrote.
And it was boring. I mean, really really boring.