Customer Reviews (1)

A Bureaucratic but Highly Informative Work
Well, they don't make them like this anymore....

The Green Books are a lasting monument to a time of truly historic proportions. This particular volume details the structure and inner workings of the Army COS. Direct and non-loaded language conveys at a brisk pace a thorough understanding of why and how developments occured. A solid reference for modern staff and historians. ... Read more

Product Description

In 1949, a twenty-six-year-old Iowa farm girl named Nita Farrier accepts a position as secretary to the Allied Occupation Force in Vienna, Austria. During her time off , she travels extensively throughout Europe, experiencing and recording in her journals the sights and sounds of Europe's most exciting cities.

Customer Reviews (2)

A remarkable first hand account of post WWII Europe
This vividly written book is one young American woman's chronicle of her daily life in Europe following WWII.The book begins and ends in Wilmington, Delaware and in the interim I was introduced to Viennese Opera, Salzburg musical festivals, the disgrace at Dachau, a meeting with the Pope, a Venetian regatta and so much more.

As it was apparently written as memoirs and not necessairly for publication, her observations and astonishing attention to detail are related honestly.Also appreciated are the frequent scenes depicted with humor, such as an elevator called the "paternaster" in which one can say the Lord's Prayer in the time it takes to reach the destination but her use of the prayer was just to get in and out of this thing safely.

I would think that those interested in travel, history, European culture, and everyday life in a continent trying to recover from the horrors of war would find this book impossible to put down.Finally, I found it intriguing that a young woman from Iowa would be so adventurous as to leave her homeland in this manner and for so long.The book starts with this decision already made so we are not told how this came about.

A Splendid Memoir and Documentary of a Neglected History
The agony and glorious conclusion of WW2 receive continuing fanfare in all media; however, the social and political aftermath and recovery in Europe have received little lasting attention outside the academic theater.

This book shows postwar Europe in the raw, with social, political, and travel/tourism observations through they eyes of a clearly educated and erudite but naive Iowa farm girl.Her experiences, her musings, and her wonderments are a metaphor for the post-war emergence of the American people as they evolved from pre-war national centrism and economic depression into a world power in leadership and economics.Ms. Farrier's position in the post-war Army occupation force left her privvy to many political and infrastructural debates of the era, and we are blessed to share these stories through her unbiased documentation.We also get a sense of the post-war psychology of Europe and Europeans, as they shake the dust of war and agonies of political errors off of themselves, their businesses, and the attractions of the continent

As the generation of Americans who lived through and/or participated in WW2 in any way dwindles in number but not in spirit, I hope that those addicted to the History Channel, readers of the great dramas and documentary books about the war, will find and enjoy this little gem.It should be of great interest to Europeans nostalgists as well. ... Read more