Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution

Starred review from June 15, 2008
Seventy-five years have passed since Adolf Hitler took power in Germany, and popular interest in his life and times has not waned. Since 1933, at least 5000 books in English have been published on Hitler and Nazism. Among the thousands of authors involved, one must place Sir Ian Kershaw at or near the top. Over the past 25 years, Kershaw (modern history, Univ. of Sheffield, "Hitler") has crafted one excellent book after another seeking to understand how Hitler and his minions were able to take political power in Germany, launch a highly destructive world war, and also murder six million Jews. Kershaw's two-volume biographical study of Hitler stands as the most definitive work to date, but he has published at least eight other books all treating different aspects of the Nazi experience in Germany. This volume brings together a number of Kershaw's most significant essays and book chapters and in so doing assists the busy reader in capturing in fewer than 400 pages the essence of Kershaw's interpretive brilliance. Kershaw provides an introduction and closing piece to newly frame these works with his summary estimation of the subject. For anyone interested in gleaning Kershaw's best insights into Hitler and the Third Reich in a single volume, this work is highly recommended.Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.