This was a frustrating book to read. The historical content was fascinating - art treasures taken by Nazis from churches and museums in occupied territory for "protection" or, worse, such treasures "acquired" from Jews who were arrested or forced to flee from the front lines of the holocaust. The subject of the book was the hunt for those treasures and their safe return to their rightful owners, if possible, or at least their country of origin. With that story to tell, The Monuments Men should h...

As a veteran of tedious art history classes and a WWII history buff, I was excited to read this book. It details the Allied efforts to track down and reclaim the great art stolen by the Nazis in Europe. The men of the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives section rode in on the heals of the liberating forces, often arriving while a city was still under enemy fire. They sought out known artworks, protected what was left behind by the retreating Germans (mostly monuments and buildings), and used dete...

I found this book a fascinating look at a little known part of World War Two. They (including women, too) were a dedicated bunch of art lovers/experts who tracked down the artwork looted by the greedy Nazis. This volume just deals with their activities in Northern Europe, and it's incredible how much they accomplished. I know little about art, but I appreciated their efforts. Great story about a great group.

If you’ve paid any attention to the publicity for the star-studded movie adaptation of this book, then you already know a little about the mission of the Monuments Men. They were a group of artists, curators, and scholars commissioned by the Allies to save great works of art from Nazi looting. Going in to the book, I had mixed feelings about the mission. I understand art is important, but not as important as human lives. Six million Jews were being gassed, burnt, starved and worked to death in t...

Though it's a fascinating bit of history, largely overlooked, this book felt like a chore to get through. There's a plodding to the writing, and a lot of repetitiveness. Repetitiveness throughout. Repeating himself in different ways, as though to pad out the book. Repeat. Also, it feels like there are a lot of shortcuts in the narrative instead of character development. A few of the Monuments Men emerge with full personalities, but more often the reader is told things like "this brilliantly matc...

I finally finished this book! I started reading a physical copy in April of last year and have picked it up every now and then since, but I decided to finish it for a challenge I'm completing. I knew I would never finish reading the physical copy in time and decided to go with the audiobook. I really wanted to give this book more than three stars because there is a lot of great information in this story, but while I loved the information, the book was so hard to get through. I think that is why

I saw the George Clooney directed movie that was 'loosely' based on this book several weeks ago. I thought it was interesting, but read it was mostly panned by the critics. I remembered I had the unread book squirreled away on a shelf somewhere. After reading the book, I can see why the movie was not well received. The movie characters don't have the same names as the real people--some characters are combined real people. Some story lines are identifiable from the book, but jumbled up. A story l...

Begins with the bar mitzvah of Harry Ettlinger in the synagogue of Karlsruhe. It was to be the last bar mitzvah ever held there as a few days later it was burned to the ground during Kristallnacht. Harry and his family manage to get out of Germany just in time. Later Harry will become one of the monuments men. The book then introduces us to several other men employed to protect monuments of cultural importance and track down the art stolen by the Nazis. I enjoyed following these men through semi...

BEWARE THE AUDIO -- Stopped before the end of the second of six audio CDs. The reader, Jeremy Davidson, in addition to a failure to correctly pronounce the names of well-known people and places, thinks he's Olivier with his accents. His British accent is irritating but his German accent really put me over the wall. The audio version is abridged and, even though I was not through the second CD, I could sense the gaps and cuts to the text.I plan to read the book. It's a good enough story to devote...

3 stars: 2 stars for the writing, which is tedious, and 4+ for the fascinating WWII history this book relates. The story of the Nazis' wholesale looting of the private and public art treasures of Europe during WWII and the efforts of the Monuments Men, with the aid of some others, to track down and return those treasures, is a significant story that I believe was largely unknown until this book (and the movie based upon it) came out, and for this the authors deserve a great deal of credit. The o...

A handful of art warriors take on the Third Reich in this story chock-full of both intrigue and culture. Read it before the movie (starring George Clooney) comes out.

It’s odd how you think your opinion of a bunch of murderous assholes couldn’t sink any lower, and then you read something like this that makes you realize that they were even worse than you thought. Nazis weren’t just xenophobic bullies who institutionalized mass murder, they were also thieves. They were probably lousy tippers, too. During World War II a handful of art experts in the Allied military forces took on the challenge of trying to protect the cultural treasures of Europe. As the war ra...

Not a mystery, and not fiction, but the story rooted in the fog of war and the number of questions still unanswered reads like the best mystery fiction. Not a thriller, but full of thrilling, death-defying action, a book written with passion and fire, if not the most meticulous attention to structure and detail, this cautionary tale should be part of the required reading at the Naval Academy, West Point and the Air Force Academy. It should also be read by every national politician who contempla...

In the movie version of this book, there is an early scene with all of the big-name actors playing the Monuments Men being briefed about their mission to save art from the Nazis during World War II. George Clooney reminds them that Hitler was rejected from art school, and shows a picture of a painting that Hitler had made. One actor says, "That's not bad." Matt Damon retorts: "It's not good."The same could be said for this book: It's not terrible, but it's not good. The history is interesting bu...

Robert M. Edsel, an ex-Texas oilman, wrote this 2009 book about the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives task force during WWII. He focuses on ten characters, one British and seven Americans in the army, and two French civilians. They were early leaders in a race to save the architecture and art endangered by theft and destruction. Mostly middle aged, with successful careers as museum director, curator, artist, architect and historian, they volunteered to serve. In the early Mediterranean campaigns...

You could argue, and I’d be hard-pressed to disagree, that there’s no work of art—not the Mona Lisa, not David, not some weird shapes Picasso projectile vomited onto a canvas and somehow convinced people were meaningful—worth more than a human life, let alone 50 million (or considerably more, depending on which data you’re using) lives. So, at first blush, the story of some past-their-prime art historians and preservationists tramping around battlefields trying to save a few paintings and sculpt...

To think I almost didn't read this five-star book because I plan to see the movie!That would have been a terrible mistake. The movie is based "loosely" on the book. Very loosely indeed. Robert M Edsel's The Monuments Men is a nonfiction account of a group of mostly American art historians, museum curators, and one very special art conservationist from Harvard's Fogg Museum, George Stout. To give you an idea of the stature of these men in the art world, after the war they went on to become the he...

I did see the movie recently and while I applaud Clooney's attempt to interest the general audiences for a forgotten but spectacular piece of WWII, the movie felt like the highlights of a story that would perhaps have benefited far better with a tv series. In the opening of the book the writer tells about the bit where he left out the Italy based part of the story due to the size of the book, I do hope that story gets its own publication one day.One thing I am the likes of Clooney grateful for i...

A few years ago, on a trip to St. Louis, Missouri and I toured their well-known art museum. I noted a number of paintings on loan by a Jewish family that stated the paintings were returned to the family by the Monument Men. I said to myself I need to read the book. Finally, I just did.From 1939 to the end of World War II, the Nazis Army seized priceless paintings, sculptures, tapestries and other artworks from museum, palaces, cathedrals and private homes. The Nazi plundered everything and carte...

Thoughts soon.