Alfred Valdmanis and the politics of survival / Gerhard P. Bassler.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Valdmanis's wily political manoeuvring in Latvia, Germany, and Canada from 1938 to 1954 is more the stuff of fiction than history.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Bassler (history, Memorial Univ. of Newfoundland) makes a scholarly contribution to the study of Latvian history and politics through a biography of a man who reached the height of his career as minister of finance of Latvia (1938-39) and the nadir in 1954 when he was charged with defrauding the government in Newfoundland, Canada. Bassler introduces a personality who does not reach the status of a minor historic figure; the real value of this biography lies in its context rather than the life itself. Because Bassler follows his subject into exile in Germany and then Canada, most of the book covers material that is generally not included in histories of Latvia: issues of collaboration under Soviet and then German occupation of the country, refugee politics in displaced persons camps in Germany, and the immigrant experience in Canada. The book is particularly valuable because of the breadth of Latvian, German, and English sources (including interviews) that were consulted and because Bassler is careful to point out differences among the various accounts, all meticulously documented. The book is strongly recommended for scholars of Baltic studies as well as general readers interested in immigrant and refugee histories. R. P. Peters; University of Massachusetts at Boston