On the shelf

Beevor in BerlinAntony Beevor8217;s runaway bestseller Berlin: The Downfall 1945 has come under withering fire from Germany8217;s leading ...

Beevor in Berlin

Antony Beevor8217;s runaway bestseller Berlin: The Downfall 1945 has come under withering fire from Germany8217;s leading expert on the last days of Hitler8217;s Third Reich. As Beevor was preparing to fly to Berlin to promote the German edition of his book, the news magazine Der Spiegel published last week a bitter three-page attack on his work, describing it as 8216;patchwork history8217;. Professor Joachim Fest, who has written a biography of Hitler and a history of the Third Reich, claimed that Beevor8217;s book was peppered with factual inaccuracies and treated his compatriots unfairly.

Fest picks out a string of relatively minor alleged factual errors before going on to accuse Beevor of mishandling source material. He criticises Beevor8217;s treatment of Hitler8217;s architect, Albert Speer, on the grounds that he relies on the records of the Nuremburg trials rather than Speer8217;s own memoirs. The German historian8217;s bitterest words are reserved for Beevor8217;s treatment of the immediate aftermath of war. Fest argues that the British historian failed to take into account 8216;the then widespread traumatic disorientation, because of the unbelievable destruction of the country, and the admission of error and feelings of guilt that were also to be found8217;. This, he said, rendered Beevor8217;s assessment 8216;not only astonishingly simplistic, but also utterly wrong8217;.

Attention Pakistan

The war in Afghanistan may still be on but the focus of the world8217;s attention is firmly moving to Pakistan. At least two journalists have written to chronicle their coverage of the tumultous recent history of books of the state. Neither book presents a rosy picture for those keen to learn from close observers. In Pakistan: Eye of the Storm, Owen Bennett Jones, a BBC correspondent formerly stationed there, writes: 8216;8216;No elected government has ever completed its term in office. It has had three wars with India and has lost around half of its territory. Its economy has never flourished. Nearly half its vast population is illiterate and 20 per cent is undernourished.8217;8217;

In Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan, Mary Anne Weaver, a correspondent for The New Yorker, observes that this vast and arid frontier zone of the Indian subcontinent is where 8216;8216;angry students cling to a vision of an Islamist utopia, and equally angry mullahs chant prayers from the country8217;s countless mosques.8217;8217; Pakistan8217;s ruling aristocracy 8212; once a triumvirate of military officers, tribal chiefs and the feudal landowners who bankroll the political parties 8212; clings to the British legacy of empire as the only available defence against anarchy. Since independence, the only addition to this triumvirate has been the Islamic clerics.