Prague Winter, by Madeleine Albright

Subtitled “A personal story of remembrance and war, 1937 – 1948,” this fascinating and well-written book by the former, and first woman, Secretary of State will be a disappointment if you are looking for a traditional memoir.  It covers her first twelve years, and obviously she wasn’t able to take detailed notes at birth.  It is much more a succinct history of Czechoslovakia and its place in history, particularly during the time period in the subtitle.  I was surprised to learn that her father had preceded her in working at the United Nations and it is clear that public service was in her genes.  What was also in her genes, unbeknownst to her until she was 59, was her Jewish heritage – and the knowledge that much of her immediate family had actually perished in the Holocaust.  It is one of the clearest brief histories of World War II that I have ever read and with its emphasis on the artificial “national” borders created by victors, a good compliment to Anthony Shadid’s The Stone House.   416 pp.