I think writers can respond by writing about the refugee crisis, by looking at problems faced by migrants, by trying hard to portray them as the human beings that they are.
ADAM HOCHSCHILDI think writers can respond by writing about the refugee crisis, by looking at problems faced by migrants, by trying hard to portray them as the human beings that they are.
ADAM HOCHSCHILDBecause they wanted a sympathetic ally in power. So I think it really was the opening act of World War II.
ADAM HOCHSCHILDAnd tens of millions of Americans will feel a similar revulsion for the politicians and generals who were so spendthrift with others’ lives.
ADAM HOCHSCHILDThe Messerschmitt 109 fighter plane for example, the Stuka dive bomber, the 88 millimeter artillery piece, which could be used both for antiaircraft purposes and also shelling on the ground.
ADAM HOCHSCHILDIts seemingly inexplicable outbursts of violence-is shaped far less by what we celebrate and mythologize than by the painful events we try to forget.
ADAM HOCHSCHILDThe late Nadine Gordimer in South Africa, for example, had a wonderful ability to get her country’s injustices and contradictions down on paper.
ADAM HOCHSCHILDFive years ago, who would have thought this possible?
ADAM HOCHSCHILDAnd American soldiers were the victims of these things in Spain, American volunteers. So this war was really a testing ground for Hitler.
ADAM HOCHSCHILDSo people at the time really saw fascism not just as an evil but as an aggressive evil that seemed to be spreading.
ADAM HOCHSCHILDYou can sense the vast inequalities of Tsarist Russia in [Anton] Chekhov and [Lev] Tolstoy.
ADAM HOCHSCHILDOne of my favourite contemporary fiction writers is a Texan, Ben Fountain. His extraordinary novel, Billy Lynn’s Long Half-Time Walk, all takes place within the half-time show at a Dallas Cowboys football game.
ADAM HOCHSCHILDRonald Reagan perfected the subtler version long ago by talking about “welfare mothers” – a code phrase for people of colour.
ADAM HOCHSCHILDYou’ve got politicians in power or vying for power who are taking tactics and elements of their appeal from the playbook of fascism.
ADAM HOCHSCHILDAll over Budapest, statues have been replaced, museum exhibits have been redone, to turn ethnic Hungarians, not Jews, into the prime victims of the Germans during World War II.
ADAM HOCHSCHILDMussolini, in 1935, went and then in the next year, conquered Ethiopia, acquiring himself a colony.
ADAM HOCHSCHILDSpeaking of Germany in 1933, I don’t think you can remove yourself from politics when, in so many countries – the United States, Poland, Hungary, and many others
ADAM HOCHSCHILD