Part of a series of books each fea­tur­ing an event in his­to­ry (see below), this book was researched by a schol­ar and summed up in 52 pages by an author. Its suc­cinct for­mat pro­vides his­toric high­lights, their mean­ing and conse- quences. For instance, if read­ers knew noth­ing about Kristall­nacht, with­in the first four pages they would learn what it was, what hap­pened to the Jews of Ger­many and Aus­tria as a result and its sig­nif­i­cance to them and soon to all of Europe. They would not learn of the cat­a­lyst for this dis­as­ter for anoth­er 30 pages, but each page would con­tain box­es of relat­ed infor­ma- tion, his­toric pho­tos, chrono­log­i­cal tables, and so on. The event known as the Holo­caust is described in the con­text of Jew­ish his­to­ry, thus mak­ing Kristall­nacht and the per­se­cu­tion of Jews by the Nazis one in a long line of per­se­cu- tions through­out their his­to­ry. The nar­ra­tive of this book does not fol­low a straight chronol­o­gy, but is extreme­ly effec­tive in serv­ing as a cat­a­lyst for thought and dis­cus­sion. There are ​“Deci­sive Words” pan­els that high­light key speech­es and deci­sions, pro­files of impor­tant lead­ers, and top­ics of events and sub-events that sum up what takes oth­er books hun­dreds of pages to dis­cuss and debate. What this book does is to direct the read­er to fur­ther books and/​or arti­cles on the sub­ject. It also pro­vides an insight­ful and use­ful out­line of Kristall­nacht that delves into its caus­es, high­lights, and use­ful­ness to the Nazis. I espe­cial­ly wel­comed the sec­tion titled: ​“What if…?” as it is a cat­a­lyst for fur­ther thought and dis­cus­sion. Includ­ed are: a time­line, notes on sources, a glos­sary, an excel­lent bib­li­og­ra­phy of books, DVDs, and web sites, relat­ed top­ics to research, and an index. It is an excel­lent book as it stands and also as an intro­duc­tion to the top­ic for old­er readers.

Oth­er books in the series are: Bush, Blair, and Iraq; Churchill and the Bat­tle of Britain; Gand­hi and the Quit India Move­ment; Kennedy and the Cuban Mis­sile Cri­sis; and Man­dela and Truth and Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion. Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 10 – 14.