Book cover of The Archive Thief: The Man Who Salvaged French Jewish History in the Wake of the Holocaust

Book description

Born into poverty in Russian Poland in 1911, Zosa Szajkowski (Shy-KOV-ski) was a self-made man who managed to make a life for himself as an intellectual, first as a journalist in 1930s Paris, and then, after a harrowing escape to New York in 1941, as a scholar. Although he never…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Archive Thief as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Leff’s book is the story of a Polish-born historian of French Jewish history who first salvaged lost documents after the Holocaust before eventually coming to steal and resell them to US and Israeli libraries and archives.

A great read, the book is the best kind of biography: it offers a vivid image of a largely forgotten group of post-Holocaust scholars and raises big questions about who has the right to own historical documents and the way their assembly determines what we know about the past.

I found this book inspiring because it shows how exciting a story about archives and…

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Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.

The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…

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