Hitler's Private Library: The Books that Shaped his Life - Hardcover

Ryback, Timothy W.

3.72

593 ratings by Goodreads

9781847920720: Hitler's Private Library: The Books that Shaped his Life

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847920721 ISBN 13: 9781847920720

Publisher: Bodley Head, 2009

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* He was, of course, a man better known for burning books than collecting them and yet by the time he died, aged 56, Adolf Hitler owned an estimated 16,000 volumes - the works of historians, philosophers, poets, playwrights and novelists. A passionate reader, his worldview was largely formed by the books he read.

* For more than fifty years the remnants of Hitler's private library occupied shelf-space in climate-controlled obscurity in the rare book division of the Library of Congress in Washington. Timothy Ryback is the first to systematically explore this remarkable collection, as well as several other caches which he subsequently discovered in Europe and elsewhere.

* The volumes in Hitler's library are fascinating in themselves but it is the marginalia - the comments, the exclamation marks, the questions and underlinings - even the dirty thumbprints on the pages of a book he read in the trenches of the First World War - which are so revealing. Together they take us closer to the man and his thinking than ever seemed possible.

* Hitler's Private Library provides us with a remarkable view of Hitler's evolution - and unparalleled insights into his emotional and intellectual world. Utterly compelling, it is also a landmark in our understanding of the Third Reich.

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Review:

In Hitler's Private Library Timothy Ryback turns Hitler's reading into a way of reading Hitler--his mind, his obsessions, his evolution. It's an original and provocative work that adds valuable context to the skeletal and mystifying historical record.

Book Description:

A brilliant and deeply resonant exploration of Hitler's reading habits; a unique exploration of his life; and a landmark in the study of the Third Reich.

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