Diary of Lt. Melvin J. Lasky

''The Diary of Lt. Melvin J. Lasky' offers not only a panoramic view of a country poised between devastation and an uncertain future but a gripping self-portrait of a man poised between unresolved youthful bewilderment and a mature clarity of conviction.' Wall Street Journal In 1945 Melvin J. Lasky, serving in one of the first American divisions that entered Germany after the country s surrender, began documenting the everyday life of a defeated nation. Travelling widely across both Germany and post-war Europe, Lasky s diary provides a captivating eye-witness account colored by ongoing socio-political debates and his personal background studying Trotskyism. The Diary of Lt. Melvin J. Lasky reproduces the diary s vivid language as Lasky describes the ideological tensions between the East and West, as well as including critical essays on subjects ranging from Lasky s life as a transatlantic intellectual, the role of war historians, and the diary as a literary genre.