Reading Karel C. Berkhoff's Harvest of Despair: Life and Death in Ukraine under Nazi Rule reaps reward but also some disappointment. For the general public unfamiliar with the historical issues and intricacies of the Nazi occupation of the Soviet Union, this book contains far more reward as a montage of vivid depictions of everyday life under German domination in the occupied East. But conversely, for those with a more advanced, research-level familiarity with the subject, the results are reversed.