Hitler: 1889-1936: Hubris

by Ian Kershaw (Author), Ian Kershaw (Author)

• New

  Illustrated
  2000

  $50.66

  From his illegitimate birth in a small Austrian village to his fiery death in a bunker under the Reich chancellery in Berlin, Adolf Hitler left a murky trail, strewn with contradictory tales and overgrown with self-created myths. One truth prevails: the sheer scale of the evils that he unleashed on the world has made him a demonic figure without equal in this century. Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the character of the bizarre misfit in his thirty-year ascent from a Viennese shelter for the indigent to uncontested rule over the German nation that had tried and rejected democracy in the crippling aftermath of World War I. With extraordinary vividness, Kershaw recreates the settings that made Hitler's rise possible: the virulent anti-Semitism of prewar Vienna, the crucible of a war with immense casualties, the toxic nationalism that gripped Bavaria in the 1920s, the undermining of the Weimar Republic by extremists of the Right and the Left, the hysteria that accompanied Hitler's seizure of power in 1933 and then mounted in brutal attacks by his storm troopers on Jews and others condemned as enemies of the Aryan race. In an account drawing on many previously untapped sources, Hitler metamorphoses from an obscure fantasist, a drummer sounding an insistent beat of hatred in Munich beer halls, to the instigator of an infamous failed putsch and, ultimately, to the leadership of a ragtag alliance of right-wing parties fused into a movement that enthralled the German people. This volume, the first of two, ends with the promulgation of the infamous Nuremberg laws that pushed German Jews to the outer fringes of society, and with the march of the German army into the Rhineland, Hitler's initial move toward the abyss of war.

• Used

  Paperback
  2001

  $14.42

  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 1940-1904 and The End: Hitler's Germany, 1944-1945 . 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.

• New

  Paperback
  2001

  $20.49

  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 1940-1904 and The End: Hitler's Germany, 1944-1945 . 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.