Hitler: A Biography (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: party chancellery, gold marks, political testament, Soviet Union, Reich Chancellery, Red Army (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Kershaw’s two-volume biography Hitler, subtitled 1889–1936: Hubris (1999) and 1936–1945: Nemesis (2000), ranks among the most significant of its kind; only biographies by Joachim Fest and Alan Bullock are in Kershaw’s league. For this abridgment of his opus, Kershaw stripped out its scholarly apparatus, reduced verbatim quotations from primary sources, and added an essay of reflections on his approach to the study of his infamous subject. With these changes, the abridgment retains two themes of Kershaw’s full-scale original: analyzing the political support the demagogue mustered from the populace and key institutional centers of Germany on his ascent to and exercise of power; and the decisive personal role of Hitler in instigating World War II and genocide. The narrative Kershaw constructs on this foundation is a superb organization and expression of Hitler’s chronological arc that plummeted the world into catastrophe and moral trauma, a trajectory informed by Kershaw’s attention to rationalizations by which people in and outside Germany, whether leaders or led, buried doubts about Hitler until his power was unrestrained, impossible to stop but by war or assassination. Manifestly, Kershaw constitutes core-collection material. --Gilbert Taylor

Review

A superb biography. (Ian Buruma - New York Times Book Review )

An achievement of the very highest order. (Michael Burleigh - Financial Times )

Kershaw is the indispensable and definitive guide to Hitler, Nazism, and the nation that, for a while, shamefully refracted his evil genius. (Martin Rubin - Los Angeles Times ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1072 pages
• Publisher: W.W. Norton & Co.; 1st American Ed., New Ed edition (November 17, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393067572
• ISBN-13: 978-0393067576
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 2.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #239,189 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #22 in	Books > Biographies & Memoirs > People, A-Z > ( H ) > Hitler, Adolf
  #72 in	Books > History > Europe > Germany > Third Reich

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not the full text - abridged and stripped of endnotes, February 10, 2009

By	trystero (USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

Kershaw's writing is masterly, and the individual works making up the biography, _Hubris_ and _Nemesis_, each deserve five stars. My three-star rating is aimed specifically at this one-volume edition: neither the jacket copy nor Amazon's description makes it clear that this is an abridgement, omitting ~650 pages from the original volumes and dropping all the endnotes.

If you want a lighter, cut-down version of Kershaw's biography, this edition is certainly serviceable. But if you want to read Kershaw's full text, rather than just the highlights, you'll be better off ordering the two volumes separately. (Which I intend to do after returning this edition.)

Again, this isn't a jab at Amazon: they've faithfully reproduced the jacket copy. But that copy really needs to use the word "abridged" somewhere to make it clear what's on offer here, and it doesn't.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good history-not biography, February 10, 2009

By	Philip Livsey "PLivsey" (Avon, CT) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is a very good history of Germany while Hitler was in power. The book does not really seem like a biography. Particularly during World War 2 there is little analysis or description of what Hitler was doing as an individual. Some personal details may seem trivial compared to the big events of the war, but part of the enjoyment of a biography is in reading the personal details.

Particularly in Hitler's case, as he was so evil, one would like some in depth knowledge of what his personal behavior was like. Moreover, as the book moves through the war years there is excellent detail and description of the Eastern Front, but the description of the West and North Africa gets much less attention.

If you are interested in WWII, it is an excellent read, but if you are looking for deep insight into Hitler it is somewhat lacking.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Biography of A Hard Subject, January 11, 2009

By	Sacramento Book Review "SacramentoBookReview.com" (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews

Successfully analyzing the events that led to the actions of the infamous Adolf Hitler in a way that is both historically correct and that does literary justice to just how monstrous, inhuman, and Machiavellian he was is quite the task to take upon oneself, and that's exactly what Ian Kershaw did. "Hitler" gives insight, and surprisingly some of it is brand new insight from previously unheard voices, into the man and the conditions that he took advantage of to gain the tyrannical power that he is so known for.

Kershaw includes all of the chilling details, and does so in such a way that you have to distance yourself from them. You have to, in a way, make parts of it far away and seemingly unreal in order to digest them, and as you read you continue until you can no longer do so and it finally hits you; until you finally have to look at the horrifying man and his iron-fisted reign.

Reviewed by Jordan Dacayanan