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Freedom Book of the Month for December, 2002:
Blood of the RosesIt's December, a traditional time of celebration for many people around the world -- a time when people seem kinder, more considerate of others. I'd like to offer a book that speaks to those better elements in our humanity while also celebrating freedom ... but if such a book was published recently, I've not seen it.
Instead, my mind has been filled with the ugly imagery of Hitler's rise to dominate Germany and World War II, and the unwavering courage of those who dared to resist him at the center of his powerlust -- the resistance group known as the White Rose. Alex Gabbard has combined meticulous research with a fictional story to create an historical novel that is powerfully, movingly wrought.
Blood of the Roses will most likely not offer any revelations for individuals who are familiar with the story of the White Rose, and its principals, Hans and Sophie Scholl, who were caught along with Cristoph Probst, tried in a German kangaroo court, and executed. I've read accounts of their resistance, and honestly did not expect to be taken by an "historical novel." Gabbard weaves a slow, inexorable magic in creating a fictional companion to the Scholls, who recounts his youth, maturation in the Hitler Youth, and finally service in the war in flashback form.
The power of Blood of the Roses isn't in its historical accuracy. It lies in what Gabbard doesn't tell, doesn't show, or leaves in shadow for the reader to grasp by way of contrast or implication. The narrative shifts from the characters' happy childhoods in the small town of Forchtenberg to the narrator's increasingly narrow, suspicious views, brought about by his never-quite-complete indoctrination into Nazism. Much of the story focuses on his life and choices, particularly after the Scholl family moves away from Forchtenberg. Their reappearance in his life is as shafts of beaming sunlight through stormcloud, and it highlights Gabbard's skill, that he can portray "foredoomed" characters so convincingly in such a manner. The fictional friend, working so hard to be transparent to the Nazis he comes to loathe, becomes almost cypherlike in his own story, so caught up is he in the machinery of war and its horrors.
Toward the close of the book, the friend begins to muse more explicitly about what's happened to freedom, and the wonderful Germany he and the Scholls so loved as children. During the Scholls' and Probst's trial he comes to an unsettling realization:
"I was struck with the question, 'How could so many be so blind?' I then came to the unsettling realization that the people in whose company I stood chose to be blind. They were not interested in truth, nor were they guided by truth. My Germans; what have you become?" (p.228)And later in the same scene:
"I recognized that the entire Reich was so fearful of the power inherent in individual freedom that it had to squelch the merest suggestion of freedom as sedition and to do so at the earliest opportunity. In spite of outward power and solidarity, Nazism existed on so tenuous and fragile a government that mere words against its precepts were regarded with utmost alarm." (p. 230)
The parallels to American society today are chilling. Blood of the Roses deserves to be widely read solely on the basis of its wonderful presentation of an inspiring story of freedom. For those who care to see the truth, it also serves as a cautionary tale of homeland security.
Order from Amazon.com, $22.95.
More book information for December 2002
edited by Sunni Maravillosa
November 2002: The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, by Ludwig von Mises
October 2002: The Haunted Air, by F. Paul Wilson
September 2002: Lead Astray and Out of Bounds, Out of Control by Peter Samuel and James V. DeLong respectively
August 2002: Boston's Gun Bible II by Boston T. Party
July 2002: Economics for Real People by Gene Callahan
June 2002: Net Assets by Carl Bussjaeger
May 2002: The Ballad of Carl Drega by Vin Suprynowicz
April 2002: Toward Liberty: The Idea that is Changing the World edited by David Boaz
March 2002: Liberty for Women edited by Wendy McElroy
February 2002: The State vs. the People by Aaron Zelman and Claire Wolfe
Freedom Book of the Year, 2001: Hope by Aaron Zelman and L. Neil Smith
January 2002: Death by Gun Control by Aaron Zelman and Richard W. Stevens
December 2001: The American Zone by L. Neil Smith
November 2001: Ayn Rand and Business by Donna Greiner and Theodore Kinni
October 2001: Junk Science Judo by Steven J. Milloy
September 2001: Jonathan Gullible by Ken Schoolland
August 2001: Hope by L. Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman
July 2001: Dissenting Electorate edited by Wendy McElroy and Carl Watner
June 2001: Tethered Citizens by Sheldon Richman
May 2001: Lever Action by L. Neil Smith
April 2001: The Cato Handbook for Congress from the Cato Institute
March 2001: The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand by David Kelley
February 2001: Crypto by Steven Levy
January 2001: Total Freedom by Chris Matthew Sciabarra
Freedom Book of the Year 2000: Forge of the Elders by L. Neil Smith
December 2000: The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto
November 2000: Escape from Leviathan by J.C. Lester
October 2000: The Art of Political War by David Horowitz
September 2000: An Enemy of the State by Justin Raimondo
August 2000: The Triumph of Liberty by Jim Powell
July 2000: A Generation Divided by Rebecca Klatch
June 2000: Law's Order by David Friedman
May 2000: Forge of the Elders by L. Neil Smith
April 2000: Reciprocia by Richard G. Rieben
March 2000: The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers by Ayn Rand
February 2000: Addiction is a Choice by Jeffrey A. Schaler
January 2000: Revolutionary Language by David C. Calderwood
Special December 1999 Feature: The Freedom Book of the Year: Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998 by Vin Suprynowicz
November 1999: Conquests and Cultures by Thomas Sowell
October 1999: A Way To Be Free by Robert LeFevre, edited by Wendy McElroy
September 1999: Assassins (Left Behind) by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
August 1999: Don't Shoot the Bastards (Yet): 101 More Ways to Salvage Freedom by Claire Wolfe
July 1999: The Mitzvah by L. Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman
June 1999: The Incredible Bread Machine by R.W. Grant
May 1999: Send in the Waco Killers by Vin Suprynowicz
April 1999: It Still Begins with Ayn Rand by Jerome Tuccille
March 1999: The Dictionary of Free-Market Economics by Fred Foldvary
February 1999: Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand edited by Mimi Reisel Gladstein and Chris Matthew Sciabarra
In December 2004 this page was modified significantly from its original form for archiving purposes.
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