In this compulsively readable and richly researched group biography, history professor Cohen tackles the personal and professional lives of a small group of daring American journalists who witnessed the world falling apart between the world wars. Holding court in destinations across Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and Asia, these foreign correspondents reported on overlooked battles and perilous compromises during a diplomatic period that sustained the thinnest veneer of peace. Drawing on archival discoveries—including private letters (some never sent) and diaries, books, and hundreds of published articles—the author unearths fascinating individuals easily comparable to the more lauded denizens of Bloomsbury and the Algonquin Round Table, including John Gunther, H. R. Knickerbocker, Vincent Sheean, and Dorothy Thompson. How a small group of Midwesterners, along with their compatriots, became renowned journalists is a tale that must be read to be believed. Cohen relishes each detail, uncovering moments of personal joy and calamity hidden behind the professional accolades and outrage that fueled their coverage of fascism’s brutal rise, which many Americans struggled to believe. As smartly written as her subjects could have hoped, Cohen's history stokes fires that blazed a century ago and reverberate still. Last Call at the Hotel Imperial is a scorching reminder of how journalism strives to change the world.
