About this title: The highly detailed and meticulously researched second volume of Richard Evans's three-part history of the Third Reich describes how Hitler's war machine figured into his design for a totalitarian state. Evans documents the ways by which, after having been elected to power, the Nazis set out to totally eliminate their opposition, and to convince ...
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Description: Good. 1594200742 Good condition. May have some markings & or shelfwear. All pages intact. Used items may not include extras such as infotrac, CD or other web access codes. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Date Published: 2005-10-20
ISBN-13:9781594200748ISBN:1594200742
Description: New. New Book. There is slight time wear. Otherwise looks new. Free tracking # included! International buyers are welcome. We ship every business day. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed! read more
"I'm giving it five stars just for the scope of the book. Also, it covers an area of scholarship that historians haven't explored. Evans writes about the Nazi impact on everyday German life. How it worked it's way through academic life, arts, business and social networks until it reached all the way into the private lives of Germans. Every step of the way it promised one thing and did another. It was a creeping, crawling insidiousness that caught people off guard. In the end the Germans diluded themselves into believing they were trading in security when they were really forfeiting their freedom. Overall, it was very readable. Evans does a good job of keeping things moving. It could have been edited some more but what would that have cut out, maybe 25 pages. Still it is not for the faint of heart. Yet it does have lessons for today."
"I read this book and the third book of this series back to back, and so this review pertains to both to some extent. If I could, I would give this series 4.5 stars or 4.75 stars. Evans' work really is excellent. The primary strength of this trilogy is how it focuses on the experience of the Germans before and during the war. For the first time in all my reading on WWII, I have a real sense of what it was like to have lived in Nazi Germany.
My only real issue with the books is that there is a great deal of material and at times the presentation gets rather sprawling. I suspect that either Evans is a better writer than most, or that he received greater editorial support than is usual for contemporary books. My overall feeling was that the prose was well composed and polished. However, there were times when I felt myself sinking into a morass of detail, and perhaps some areas needed to be amended somewhat.
Also, those seeking details of military operations will be disappointed. This was not an issue for me, because I have read so much on the military side of the war. Evans does not completely ignore this aspect, but he recounts the highlights of the military situation with great terseness. Evans' priority is plainly on the internal domestic situation of Germany.
The sections of the book that dealt with the mistreatment of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and so on, became increasingly difficult for me to read, which is no fault of Evans. He is extremely objective at all times yet nevertheless represents Nazi policies with a stark and relentless analysis. But the effect on any reader with human feelings must be to create great emotional distress. I confess that I decided not to read the section in book 3 on the Final Solution itself, as emotional fatigue made it impossible. I will at some point read this section after I have recovered somewhat.
On the whole, I found the analysis of Germany under Nazi rule to be both repellent and yet fascinating. Unfortunately, it reminded me of the United States during the G.W. Bush presidency, although Bush and his crew were poor shadows of the real Nazis. Marx's great quip that history occurs twice, first as tragedy and then as farce, comes to mind. As with the US under Bush, a great many Germans were not too sure of the sanity of the rulers, and yet the rulers made sure that dissent was largely quashed. The result in both cases was adventurism which in both cases lead to disaster.
The book speaks to one of the great questions of history, can a whole people be blamed for the catastrophic policies of their leaders? On the one hand, as Evans shows, most Germans knew of the genocidal policies of the Nazis. To their credit, as Evans shows, many if not most of the older generations were not at all happy with these policies. Additionally, very few Germans were gung-ho on Hitler's military adventurism early in the war. Even after Hitler looked invincible, for such a supposedly 'militaristic' people, the Germans as a whole did not seem to be very warlike. On the other hand, few Germans did much about it. And many actively collaborated in genocidal efforts.
Reading this gave me a very uncomfortable feeling. As an American, I felt disturbing echoes of how the United States went to war with Iraq and engaged in torture. I know I certainly did not do my part in opposing this, and I also know there were a great many people like me who also disliked the direction that the country was taking and the moral catastrophe in the making. On the other hand, the public space for resistance was very small, vastly larger than in the Third Reich, but without question smaller than it should be in a 'democratic' society.
Evans' work will definitely be considered a landmark in this field and is well worth reading. It is not a book for the squeamish, however, while few details are graphic, there is much horror in its pages. I offer the potential reader one word of advice: Don't read it all in one go, do break it up with lighter fare.
The Third Reich is a great negative example for us to all learn from, and this trilogy is definitely a place to look to for such lessons."
"If you are willing to murder, steal and lie. You too can be a dictator. I have put the follow up book on my list at the library. This series is a must read for anyone who wants to understand how evil triumphed in Germany."
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