Deborah Cadbury

I came to this book first having read Victoria, historical fiction by Daisy Goodwin, followed by watching the 2009 feature film, The Young Victoria starring Emily Blunt. And then this caught my eye. Victoria and Albert had 9 children and 42 grandchildren, and Albert had a grand vision of uniting Europe in eternal peace through marriages of their offspring with other royal families. After his untimely death, Victoria forged ahead with Albert’s dream, ultimately connecting most of European show more royalty in Europe in one way or another (often multiple ways!). It was eye-opening to learn just how closely related major players in WWI were (e.g., George V and Kaiser Wilhelm, who were at war, were 1st cousins, as were Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas II, who were also at war) and the frequency to which first cousins were encouraged to marry was rather disturbing viewed through a 21st-century lens. Spoiler alert: making everyone related didn’t prevent conflict, but it sure did result in a lot of hemophilia! There were lots of family members to keep track of, and many shared given names so it can get confusing, but overall I found it interesting and learned quite a bit. show less

A clearly-written exploration of the race between the USA and the Soviet Union to be first to put a man on the Moon. The story is told through the histories of the two project leaders - Wernher von Braun in Germany, and Sergei Korolev, the Soviet Union's 'Chief Designer of Rockets'.

The author pulls no punches in describing conditions in the Mittelwerk, the underground factory in the Harz Mountains in Germany where slave labour built the V-2s, and comparing that with the Gulag where Korolev show more was imprisoned - the difference being that von Braun never had to suffer the conditions his workers toiled under. The text is quite vociferous at laying much of the blame for conditions in the Mittelwerk at the feet of its SS military commander, a nasty piece of work called Kammler who didn't survive the war to be brought to justice; though an epilogue, which tells the story of what happened after the Moon landings, exposes the charges levelled during the1980s at von Braun as to his role in the use of slave labour; but by then, von Braun had been dead nearly ten years.

Korolev gets a better crack of the whip; his incarceration in the Gulag was laid at Stalin's feet, though Cadbury doesn't explore the charge that Korolev had actually been diverting funds away from the research institute where he worked and putting them to rocketry. His rehabilitation, as a matter of technical expediency, did not involve any clever footwork to avoid difficult questions, as happened when von Braun reached America; and the revelations about his identity and hardships after his death all worked to his posthumous good. Korolev's early death following bowel surgery is described in considerable, toe-curling detail; it was the turning point for the Soviet Moon project and so merits inclusion, whereas von Braun lived to see his dream achieved.

Both men suffered at the hands of their governments, though in von Braun's case that suffering was minimal in comparison both to Korolev and to that his workers had to endure. The book is quite clear that von Braun and his team were very much aware that the collapsing Third Reich would have no qualms at all about executing them to prevent their knowledge falling into the hands of Germany's enemies, no matter how lost the Nazi cause was. Von Braun's urgent need to sell out to the best bidder is quite clearly shown and understood; the Russians made attractive offers to try to entice some of the V-2 team to go east, and some did; but they soon found that once their immediate usefulness was over, their positions ceased to be as comfortable as they had hoped.

Perhaps the most interesting contrast between the two men is the way they reacted to their situation. Whilst von Braun was looking to sell out to new masters (not without good reason), Korolev was surviving the Gulag. Although he was later transferred to one of the special Gulag camps, reserved for highly technically-skilled prisoners where they could do work that would be useful to the State like designing aeroplanes or rockets, he never forgot the harshness of his treatment. Yet such was his patriotism that he never swerved from his course, or expressed any disloyalty to the Communist cause. This was only partly enlightened self-interest; there are many accounts of Russians in the Gulag expressing dismay when Stalin died, or continuing to work for the benefit of the State and the Party when their situations eased.

Both men had to struggle to get official backing; the bureaucracy in the USA was almost as bad as that in the Soviet Union and this delayed the early development of both men's projects. Inter-service rivalry in the USA was in part responsible for the multiple instances of failed launches the Americans suffered. A similar state of affairs in Russia was down more to shortages of equipment, material and facilities. That the Russians were first to launch a satellite, and first to put a person in orbit, was partly down to sheer luck; but once the Americans were spurred to action, they kept pouring resources into their project. The Russians' luck ran out with the design of the gigantic, over-complex N-1 rocket that was the Soviet equivalent to NASA's Saturn V. The complexity of what really is, after all, rocket science had been a pitfall for both sides throughout; NASA got a hold of the problem through improving project planning and being able to devote resources to the project.

The book is a quick and easy read; once the Soviet project fails, though, the story of the Apollo programme is a bit rushed. It talks at length about the Apollo 1 fire (again, some of this spares little detail), and the proving flights of first the unmanned capsules, then the test flights - Apollo 8 to circle the moon, then Apollos 9 and 10 to test out the Lunar Module - are generally glossed over so that the story of the Apollo 11 landing, with Neil Armstrong's split-second decisions over continuing the powered descent despite running the fuel tanks almost dry can be told in detail. Once that's done, the race is won and the epilogue quickly follows, telling something of what happened to von Braun after Apollo (as I said earlier), and the fate of some of the other players on the Soviet side.

The book was written to accompany a BBC television series of drama-documentaries of the same name, broadcast in 2005. But it goes well beyond being just a supporting text and instead is a good single-volume story of perhaps the most high-profile battleground of the Cold War. show less

This is an account of the early discoveries of fossils of dinosaurs and other early creatures, and the evolution (pardonable pun) of knowledge of and thought about the early history of life on earth, throughout the first half of the 19th century. Two key early discoveries are those of the icthyosaur by Mary Anning in Lyme Regis, and the iguanadon by Gideon Mantell in Lewes in Sussex. These two come across as appealing and very ordinary human individuals, often taken advantage of by others. show more This is especially so for Anning, discovering fossils very early on as a girl and young woman in the 1810s and 20s; but also in a different way for Mantell, who, lacking the advantages of inherited wealth and free time of other early pioneers in the field, had to make his mark as a country doctor, helping and sometimes saving the lives of his poor patients, while trying in his spare time to pursue his passion for geology, a passion that strained his happy marriage to eventual breaking point.

One of the key themes as the book goes on is the bitter rivalry between Mantell and anatomist Richard Owen, coiner of the word "dinosaur" and later the founder and first director of the Natural History Museum in London. Owen, while a brilliant man in his own right, was also unscrupulous in claiming credit for discoveries made by Mantell and others, and diminishing their achievements for the sake of his own self-aggrandisement; this worked for him, and he became tutor to Queen Victoria's children, and played a pivotal role in the organisation of the Great Exhibition in 1851. Even after Mantell's tragic death in 1852, wracked by pain caused by being thrown from a carriage a decade earlier and injuring his back, and only able to function by managing the pain with opiates, Owen rubbished Mantell's work and character in an ostensibly anonymous obituary. In a bizarre and rather unsavoury twist of fate, Mantell's twisted spine ended up as an exhibit in Owen's collection. (as an aside, the spine remained in the Royal College of Surgeons until the mid-20th century; Cadbury says it was bombed in the Blitz, though other sources say it was voluntarily destroyed in 1969 due to lack of space).

Another key theme in the book is the battle between science and religion, but it is not cast in the simple Darwinism vs. creationism paradigm; rather it was a gradual movement of the centre of gravity of mainstream scientific opinion along a spectrum of thought where, for much of the three or four decades before Darwin's Origin of Species was published in 1859, the growing evidence for the development of forms of life and the relations between them was accepted (in the teeth of opposition from creationists), but along with an assumption that God provided the original spark for life in the first place and that he wrote the rules by which life forms developed (in modern parlance, "intelligent design"). Owen was an epitome of this view. Darwin and Huxley of course changed the paradigm in the 1860s and later, such that Owen's reputation was ironically itself trashed somewhat unfairly after his death in 1892, and his life's work dismissed due to his opposition to Darwinism.

This was a fascinating read. Unfortunately this Kindle version lacked the illustrations in the print version (which I used to have, but which has annoyingly disappeared from my shelves!). show less

I listened to this book after downloading it from audiobooksync. Often, I find non-fiction less well-written than fiction novels. Occasionally, I will be mesmerized by a narrative non-fiction, but I usually find them hard to concentrate on and keep the people straight. I read non-fiction better than listen to it. I was mesmerized by this book and have recommended it to many friends.

Anna Essinger believed she knew how to educate and help children, opening a school in Germany. After reading show more Mein Kampf, Ms. Essinger could see the dangers the ideology proposed where freedom of thought and expression would be stifled. She watched Germany slowly come under the leadership of Hitler, becoming angry when ordered to fly the Nazi flag. She arranged a field trip for her mostly Jewish pupils so that the flag flew over a mostly empty school. How do you move an entire school out of Germany? In 1938, after informing parents of her plans, she formed three groups of teachers who picked up students throughout Germany and then took three different routes out of Germany, taking Jewish children from a country and continent about to decimate the Jewish population. Shortly thereafter, Kindertransport brought Jewish children from Germany to England where Tante Anna accepted as many as she could. She also worked to move her Jewish family out of Germany before Hitler could lock the country down, as she suspected he would.

Life in Kent, England presented freedoms to the children. They repaired, built, and created a home at Bunce Court. Tante Anna believed children should not be oppressed, so they could study as they chose. She did expect students to be kind to one another. While establishing a new home, the children received letters from family members in Germany, not quite realizing what atrocities were truly going on. When the war began, the school's location near the coast meant that the government would requisition their buildings and gardens. Having only a few days, Tante Anna found a new location. Once again, the students and teachers would have to repair, rebuild, and create a home. The story oscillates between children in the school and children in Germany or Poland who were caught up in the war. Their survival stories show resilience, luck, and horror. The stories of what happened to their families and themselves brought tears to my eyes.

After WWII, some surviving children came to England and joined Anna's school. They had received no education in years and did not speak English. Here the children could heal. At the end of the book, you learn about the childrens' lives after Tante Anna closes the school. I am truly only giving a very broad overview of this nonfiction book. Tears flooded my eyes as I learned about the children when they became adults. Children always returned to Bunce Court, seeing it as a home. They visited Tante Anna after she retired, taking care of her. The bond they formed was unlike most school friends, as they lived together during a very difficult time in history. They helped heal the Jewish surviving children after the war and watched out for Tante Anna. Many were quite successful despite their schooling being delayed many years. I absolutely loved this story. We always hear about the brave men who fought in the war, but here is a story of a strong woman who saw what others didn't and took chances to save her pupils and her own family. Her courage, organizational skills, and outstanding leadership should be remembered and celebrated. Everyone should read this book--to remember and to remind us the importance of education and freedom of thought. show less