A review by kathykekmrs
The Last Palace: Europe's Turbulent Century in Five Lives and One Legendary House by Norman Eisen

5.0

This is a really good book. This is the history of the building that the United States would make the US Embassy in the Czech Republic. It was built by an eccentric Jew with a large coal fortune in the ninety twenties. He traveled all over Europe to make sure he had the best of everything or at the very least really good replicas. This book goes into the Nazi Party coming to power and taking the building Then the Russians came and destroyed it as the Soviet Government did not honor the history. The United States wanted to buy the building, but it was a hard sell since the true owners had emigrated to the United States and England just before Krystallnacht. They would have given the palace to the United States Department of State. This is not the way the US government acts, generally. They believe in paying for the buildings and lands that they appropriate. Parts of the palace were able to be restored and the building witnessed much of the history of the twentieth century. Shirley Temple Black was the Ambassador when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and her relationship with the Czech people is in the book. This is written by the Ambassador under President Obama and intersperses his family's history throughout the book.