Native's Return: Twentith Century Journey, 1945-1988; A Memoir of a Life and the Times: A Memoir of a Life and the Times

In this remarkable memoir, journalist-historian William L. Shirer (1904-1993) describes his childhood in Chicago and Cedar Rapids, plus his career as a young reporter in Paris and Europe from 1925-1930. Readers see this young man mature as the horse-and-buggy gave way to automobiles and airplanes. We also learn from his humane yet skeptical view of society. Shirer met an incredible number of the day's notables, and here skillfully describes Clarence Darrow, William Jennings Bryan, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ghandi, Jack Dempsey, Isadora Duncan, Gerturde Stein, Ernest Hemmingway, Grant Wood, etc. The author also captures the sights, sounds, and flavor of his beloved Paris; this book made a nice travel companion on a recent trip. I enjoyed reading of his young bachelorhood in the heady Paris of the late 1920's, tempered by shadows of Depression, Nazism, and war on the horizon. Future historians and students should read these pages to feel the rythyms of the early 20th Century. Shirer's immense talent and easy-reading prose led to three exceptional memoirs (this one, NIGHTMARE YEARS-1984, RETURN OF THE NATIVE-1989), plus his outstanding bestsellers on Nazi Germany, BERLIN DIARY-1941, RISE AND FALL OF THIRD REICH-1960, plus NIGHTMARE YEARS.

William Shirer, best known for The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, here presents a fascinating account of the first 25 years of his life. Young childhood in Chicago, growing up in rural Iowa, then being lucky enough to land a newspaper job on a trip to Europe (days before having to head back to Prohibition-time rural America), and then spending his young adulthood in the glorious cities of Europe in the Golden Years, before the shadows of Fascism and Nazism began to dim the lights...(but that leads to the second book of his autobiographical trilogy). I find this man's accounts of life in the U.S. Midwest, of meeting celebrities and writers and leaders of the thriving, to-be-short-lived Europe of the Twenties (and falling in love as well..don't we all), to be gripping and entertaining. I envy Mr. Shirer's life, too. My favorite autobiography of any I have read, bar none.

The author's third and final memoir volume is very moving, but falls just short of its outstanding predecessors (THE START & NIGHTMARE YEARS) due to lighter sprinkling of contemporary history. William L. Shirer (1904-1993) lived a remarkably full life, and at age 85 retained the immense talents that ranked him among our top journalist/historians. Here he recounts returning to a defeated Berlin in 1945, his firing by CBS News (told quite differently elsewhere), and his struggle to write RISE AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH while semi-blacklisted and half-broke in the late 1950's. Shirer also takes a limited look at the events of the 1970's and 1980's, describes his prolific seniority, and pays tribute to friends lost to advancing years. The author's bittersweet account of his final visit to Paris 60 years after having first lived there in the 1920's speaks volumes. This journalist-turned-author was a perceptive realist, somewhat headstrong and pessimistic, and well seasoned by wine, women and song. Writing that wonderfully readable prose of old newspapermen, Shirer certainly left his mark - as had been predicted in his college days by a long-forgotten editor back in Cedar Rapids, Iowa (see THE START). This final memoir is perhaps best once you've gotten a sense of the man from his earlier memoirs and other stellar books. Not knowing that he'd live to finish another book (on Tolstoy), Shirer's final passages are a moving farewell. As he states, "...it was an interesting fate to be an American in the Twentieth Century...I am glad it was mine."

Shirer's moving account of his formative years in Chicago, Cedar Rapids, and as a young reporter in Paris ranks as solid autobiographical writing. I like how this renowned journalist parallels history with a revealing narrative of his youthful yearnings, setbacks, and rebellious insights. Future historians will read this volume to feel the rhythms of everyday life from 1904-1930. Career, personality, and luck exposed young Shirer to many notables, and his portraits of acquaintances like Hemmingway, Sinclair Lewis, Isadora Duncan, and Eamon De Velera add spice to the narrative. Some academic historians jealously dismiss Shirer's best-selling books, but I find his eyewitness accounts illuminating and his prose superior. The first of three volumes, this memoir is more personally revealing than The Nightmare Years, Shirer's superb account of Nazi Germany and A Native's Return, his homecoming finale. Writes Shirer in the introduction, "...it is an interesting fate being an American in the Twentieth Century. I am glad it was mine."

I rate this a 9 because it isn't quite The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, or The Collapse of the Third Republic. For any other author, this final volume of memoirs would be a 10. Academic historians hate the man, because he has outdone them at every turn and has made modern history readable. This final volume of memoirs is fascinating, because it recounts Shirer's view of his departure from CBS -- a view far different than that expressed by Ann Sperber in her biography of Edward R. Murrow. It is fascinating because it sets the reader down, and explains what it was like to be a world class author and intellectual unable to ply his craft due to the inclusion of his name in the notorious "Red Channels". In the final analysis, it is fascinating because it is William L. Shirer writing about William L. Shirer surviving ouster from CBS, McCarthyism, and going on to write two of the most important works of contemporary history the western world has ever been privilaged to read. This work cannot be commended too highly to the intellectually aware. Conservatives and other knotheads ought best to look elsewhere, for these are fools that Shirer does not suffer gladly, indeed at all.