Book: MY GRANDFATHER'S KNIFE (2022)

Published by HarperCollins and The History Press (Spanish translation by Planeta published in Autumn 2022), ORDER HERE

“Joseph Pearson has found an exceptional approach to narrate a time that has become increasingly difficult to write about. By looking at objects that shaped World War II, My Grandfather’s Knife uses an original, unideological angle to approach historical truth. Literary non-fiction at its best.”

–Norman Ohler, author of Blitzed

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“Extraordinary … History at its most sensitive and evocative. Pearson’s astonishing detective work has uncovered stories so poignant and original that they cannot fail to leave an indelible mark. A remarkable book that takes us to the very core of human experience.”

–Julia Boyd, author of Travellers in the Third Reich

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‘I hugely enjoyed My Grandfather’s Knife, which is both sophisticated and accessible, an engrossing and moving story of global entanglements which still resonate today. Pearson strips back each layer of the past with the forensic skill of the detective. He also writes extremely well’.

–Brendan Simms, author of Europe

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“Joseph Pearson has discovered a unique and exciting way of telling history. It’s as if you have been transported back to another moment in time, attached to an object, at times a relatively simple object, found in one’s own family belongings. But the tantalizing stories these objects reveal place the reader right inside a critical period of history as the world risks destroying itself in a war that took seventy-five million lives.”

— Peter Mansbridge, former chief correspondent, CBC News

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“Fascinating. Exclamation mark. This is usually an exaggerated claim. But in the case of Joseph Pearson’s My Grandfather’s Knife, it’s accurate. With the discipline of a material historian, the empathy of a novelist, and the inquiring mind of a detective, Pearson investigates five objects. Each has a connection to the Second World War. Each has a story. As is true of the best guides, Pearson transforms his fascination into ours.”

— David Macfarlane, author of The Danger Tree: Memory, War, and the Search for a Family’s Past

A knife adorned with a swastika and an eagle’s head … As a young boy, Joseph Pearson was terrified of the weapon hanging from a hook in his grandfather’s basement, a trophy seized from the enemy in battle.

When he later inherited the knife, he unlocked a story far more unsettling than he could ever have imagined. By then a writer and cultural historian living in Berlin, Joseph found himself drawn to other objects from the Nazi era: a pocket diary, a recipe book, a double bass and a cotton pouch. Although the past remains a painful subject in Germany, he embarked on a journey to illuminate their stories before they disappeared from living memory.

A historical detective story and an enthralling account of one historian’s search for answers, My Grandfather’s Knife is at once a poignant meditation on memory and a unique addition to our understanding of Nazi Germany.