In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Britain

Another well written popular history from Erik Larson (I previously read Devil in the White City and Issac's Storm).  This book focuses on the family of U.S. ambassador to Germany, William E. Dodd. It combines a vivid day-to-day portrayal of the growing Nazi menace with gossipy details of Martha Dodd's very active love life. 

Larson did a great deal of research into the years when Dodd was serving in Berlin, but there is little feeling for the impact of the Versailles treaty and life in the Weimar Republic during the first years of the Hitler period (hard to picture Sally Bowles in this Berlin). Understanding Hitler's rise to power requires a good background in the German sense of humiliation from the treaty terms and the economic hardships during the 1920s.