Steven J. Ross, author of "Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America"

The Oviatt Library Presents

Steven J. Ross is Professor of History at USC and Director of the Casden Institute for the Study of the Jewish Role in American Life. In his new book released in October 2017, Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America, Ross tells the true, little-known story of the rise of Nazism in Los Angeles, and the Jewish leaders and spies recruited to stop it. In a recent Smithsonian interview, Ross said researching this book has changed how he thinks about resistance: “They stopped this without ever firing a gun, without ever using a weapon. They used the most powerful weapon of all…their brains.”

In his research, Ross drew heavily on the archives of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles Community Relations Committee (CRC) that reside in the Oviatt Library’s Special Collections and Archives.