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A 2018 FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZEThe chilling, little-known story of the rise of Nazism in Los Angeles, and the Jewish leaders and spies they recruited who stopped it.No American city was more important to the Nazis than Los Angeles, home to Hollywood, the greatest propaganda machine in the world. The Nazis plotted to kill the citys Jews and to sabotage the nations military installations: plans existed for hanging twenty prominent Hollywood figures such as Al Jolson, Charlie Chaplin, and Samuel Goldwyn; for driving through Boyle Heights and machine-gunning as many Jews as possible; and for blowing up defense installations and seizing munitions from National Guard armories along the Pacific Coast.U.S. law enforcement agencies were not paying close attention--preferring to monitor Reds rather than Nazis--and only Leon Lewis and his daring ring of spies stood in the way. From 1933 until the end of World War II, attorney Leon Lewis, the man Nazis would come to call "the most dangerous Jew in Los Angeles," ran a spy operation comprised of military veterans and their wives who infiltrated every Nazi and fascist group in Los Angeles. Often rising to leadership positions, this daring ring of spies uncovered and foiled the Nazis disturbing plans for death and destruction.Featuring a large cast of Nazis, undercover agents, and colorful supporting players, Hitler in Los Angeles, by acclaimed historian Steven J. Ross, tells the story of Lewiss daring spy network in a time when hate groups had moved from the margins to the mainstream.



About the Author

Steven J. Ross

STEVEN J. ROSS is Professor of History at the University of Southern California and Director of the Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life. He is the author of Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics (2011) which won an Academy of Motion Pictures Film Scholars Award and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; it was also listed by the New York Times Book Review as one of their recommended Summer Readings. His book, Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America (1998) , received the prestigious Theater Library Association Book Award for 1999 and was named by the Los Angeles Times as one of the "Best Books of 1998." His other works include Movies and American Society (2002) and Workers On the Edge: Work, Leisure, and Politics in Industrializing Cincinnati, 1788-1890 (1985) . His Op-Ed pieces have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, International Herald-Tribune, HuffingtonPost, Hollywood Reporter, and Politico. His latest book, Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America, was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History for 2018. it tells the true story of a spy ring run by Los Angeles Jews from August 1933 until the end of WWII. For HITLER IN LOS ANGELES Website: http://scalar.usc.edu/works/hitler-in-los-angeles/index



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