The Great Escape: Nine Jews Who Fled Hitler and Changed the World - Tapa dura

"Kati Marton's wonderful book celebrates what is glorious and eternal in the human condition."-- Elie Wiesel, Nobel Laureate and Professor of Humanities, Boston University "In this insightful, moving, and deftly researched book, Kati Marton writes about nine Hungarians whose experiences are a prism through which we can see the quest and ultimate triumph of humanity seeking the right to dream and the freedom to create."-- Vartan Gregorian, President, Carnegie Corporation of New York "Kati Marton captures beautifully the genius and flair, as well as the insecurity and essential loneliness, of nine brilliant Jewish refugees from Hungary. Not only is this great biography, it gives a touching insight into human nature and the wellsprings of creative ambition."-- Walter Isaacson, author of "Benjamin Franklin" "Hungarians, those men from Mars, escaped west in the years before World War II and gave us great scientists, filmmakers, photographers, and engineers. Kati Marton's lively, engaging group portrait recovers for us the lives and work of the extraordinary men who invented Hollywood and the atomic bomb."-- Richard Rhodes, author of "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" "Just when you thought you'd heard all the stories about World War II, along comes "The Great Escape," a great read and a long overdue account of the remarkable lives of a small band of greatly gifted Hungarians who made profoundly important contributions to the American effort. Kati Marton tells this astonishing story with grace and passion, a sharp eye for the telling detail and the broad sweep of history."-- Tom Brokaw, author of "The Greatest Generation"

Author Kati Marton follows these nine over the decades as they flee fascism and anti-Semitism, seek sanctuary in England and America, and set out to make their mark. The scientists Leo Szilard, Edward Teller, and Eugene Wigner enlist Albert Einstein to get Franklin Roosevelt to initiate the development of the atomic bomb. Along with John von Neuman, who pioneers the computer, they succeed in achieving that goal before Nazi Germany, ending the Second World War, and opening a new age. Arthur Koestler writes the most important anti-Communist novel of the century, Darkness at Noon. Robert Capa is the first photographer ashore on D-Day. He virtually invents photojournalism and gives us some of the century's most enduring records of modern warfare. Andre Kertesz pioneers modern photojournalism, and Alexander Korda, who makes wartime propaganda films for Churchill, leaves a stark portrait of post war Europe with The Third Man, as his fellow filmmaker, Michael Curtiz, leaves us the immortal Casablanca, a call to arms and the most famous romantic film of all time. Marton brings passion and breadth to these dramatic lives as they help invent the twentieth century.