Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris - Softcover

Kershaw, Ian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140133631 ISBN 13: 9780140133639

Publisher: Penguin, 2001

Synopsis

Ian Kershaw's Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris charts the rise of Adolf Hitler, from a bizarre misfit in a Viennese dosshouse, to dictatorial leadership.

With extraordinary skill and vividness, drawing on a huge range of sources, Kershaw recreates the world which first thwarted and then nurtured Hitler in his youth, from early childhood to the first successes of the Nazi Party.
As his seemingly pitiful fantasy of being Germany's saviour attracted more and more support, Kershaw brilliantly conveys why so many Germans adored Hitler, connived with him or felt powerless to resist him.

'Supersedes all previous accounts. It is the sort of masterly biography that only a first-rate historian can write'
  David Cannadine, Observer Books of the Year

'The Hitler biography for the 21st century ... cool, judicious, factually reliable and intelligently argued'
  Richard Evans, Sunday Telegraph

'One of the major historical biographies of our times ... a riveting read'
  Jackie Wullschlager, Financial Times, Best Biographies of the Year

'His analysis of Hitler's extraordinary character has the fascination of a novel, but he places his struggle and rise in the context of meticulously researched history ... Deeply disturbing. Unforgettable'
  A.N. Wilson, Daily Mail

'A sane, erudite, moral and intellectually honest biography of the 20th century's most destructive politician'
  Ruth Scurr, The Times

Ian Kershaw's other books include Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis, Making Friends with Hitler, Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World 1940-4 and The End: Hitler's Germany, 1944-45. Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis received the Wolfson History Prize and the Bruno Kreisky Prize in Austria for Political Book of the Year, and was joint winner of the inaugural British Academy Book Prize.

About this title

Product Description:

Drawing on a range of sources, this work recreates the world which first thwarted and then nurtured the young Hitler. As his seemingly pitiful fantasy of being Germany's saviour attracted more and more support, it conveys why so many Germans adored Hitler, connived with him or felt powerless to resist him.

Review:

Is there anything fresh to be said about Hitler? He is an icon, maybe the icon, of the 20th century. He was a failed artist with Wagnerian fantasies, a slob who could not get up in the morning, but he exposed the frailties of modern civilisation in a way that should still make us giddy. How? Was it his doing, or German society's? Professor Ian Kershaw has produced a work of definitive scholarship that will be the standard for years to come. It was badly needed; since Alan Bullock's 1952 classic Hitler: A Study in Tyranny and Joachim Fest's Hitler (originally published in 1973) there has been much valuable research, all of which Kershaw seems to have read (there are 200 pages of notes). Add to this the media (and, by extension, public) fascination with the nature of evil, and a resurgent interest in right-wing groups, and this book becomes long overdue. Kershaw deals rigorously with the bones of his subject's life. He has no truck with psychological padding, and calmly demolishes most of the quasi-facts that have sprung up--if in doubt, he allows space within the chronology. His description of the path to the Chancellorship, which was always more messy than messianic, is painful to behold but gripping to follow, and concludes in 1936 with Hitler at the height of his "Hubris". This is an important study of the character of power, as clearly written as it is intellectually engaging. --David Vincent

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0140133631
• ISBN 13: 9780140133639
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 880