RaveThe Los Angeles Review of BooksCitizen 865 is a powerful, important book by Debbie Cenziper, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist. It could earn her a second prize. It is serious journalism at its best. Citizen 865 reads like a fast-paced mystery novel. But it is not fiction. It is all true ... Cenziper brilliantly retells the story of how lawyers and historians unraveled [Reimer\'s] lies, with the help of some survivors of Reimer’s atrocities ... The story of Feliks and Lucyna puts a human face to the horrors of the Holocaust, even as we stand in awe of their strength, wits, and good luck in surviving ... This powerful book reminds us that hateful jargon and slogans can lead to murder and genocide. But it is also a hopeful book about the power of knowing history and the rule of law.
David J. Barron
PanThe Los Angeles Review of BooksMuch of Barron’s story, whether he wants to admit it or not, is about how presidents have ignored Congress, circumvented Congress, or gained Congressional support by cajoling, threatening, or outright lying to Congress. Barron does not explore this as he might ... All of these omissions, in just the modern period, undermine the analysis and argument of the book ... The many omissions in Barron’s history — some I have already noted and others I will discuss below — are compounded by the book’s incredible sloppiness. Barron severely undermines his own credibility and his arguments throughout the book with a history that is often factually wrong to the point of being useless or misleading ... Beyond these (and many other) errors, Barron fails to examine key moments in US history when unilateral presidential leadership — including the use of force or the threat of force — mattered.
