A Hitler biography unlikely to be surpassed for quite some time.
An expert on Nazi Germany delivers a massive new biography of arguably the most monstrous leader in history.
Longerich (Modern German History/Royal Holloway Univ. of London; Goebbels: A Biography, 2015, etc.) addresses the many biographies that have come before, notably by Ian Kershaw and Joachim Fest, which tend to characterize Hitler as a loner and an outsider, a “nonperson.” In contrast, Longerich examines Hitler’s “autonomous role as an active politician” in shaping the policies of his party. “I argue…that critical turning points in Hitler’s policies cannot be seen as the result of external constraints and structural determinants but were the product of decisions he forced through in the face of resistance and significant retarding factors,” writes the author. After Hitler’s first three nondescript decades, the post–World War I depression gave way to fury and rage at the German defeat, and he found expression as a propagandist for the extreme right-wing German Workers’ Party. Emerging a “magnificent failure” from his botched putsch, trial, and imprisonment, he set about creating a public image and political program with Mein Kampf, articulating especially his anti-Semitism and the conquest of “living space” in Eastern Europe. Although he was appointed chancellor in January 1933, his party, writes Longerich, “still had no more than one-third of the electorate behind it,” and it took “great political skill” over the next 18 months to transform the government into a Hitler dictatorship. The author deftly shows how Hitler actively “steered the course of events”—e.g., neutralizing the left, removing basic rights, eliminating trade unions, asserting total Nazi control of all clubs and associations, and “sorting out” the role of the two churches. As the momentum of terror grew, so did the inner conflicts and inconsistencies. Yet these did not undermine Hitler’s rule; on the contrary, the often cited “chaos of offices,” the author notes, “strengthened his personal position” and “allowed him…to enforce his political will directly as an autocratic dictator.” Throughout, the author wears his impeccable scholarship lightly, creating a fresh picture of one of history’s most written-about subjects.
A Hitler biography unlikely to be surpassed for quite some time.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-19-005673-5
Page Count: 912
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.
The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.
Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.
If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-670-88146-5
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
For the author’s fans.
A Fox News journalist and talk show host sets out to prove that she is not “an empty St. John suit in five-inch stiletto heels.”
The child of devout Christians, Minnesota native Carlson’s first love was music. She began playing violin at age 6 and quickly revealed that she was not only a prodigy, but also a little girl who thrived on pleasing audiences. Working with top teachers, she developed her art over the years. But by 16, Carlson began “chafing at [the] rigid, structured life” of a concert violinist–in-training and temporarily put music aside. At the urging of her mother, the high achiever set her sights on winning the Miss T.E.E.N. pageant, where she was first runner-up. College life at Stanford became yet another quest for perfection that led Carlson to admit it was “not attainable” after she earned a C in one class. At the end of her junior year and again at the urging of her mother, Carlson entered the 1989 Miss America pageant, which she would go on to win thanks to a brilliant violin performance. Dubbed the “smart Miss America,” Carlson struggled with pageant stereotypes as well as public perceptions of who she was. Being in the media spotlight every day during her reign, however, also helped her decide on a career in broadcast journalism. Yet success did not come easily. Sexual harassment dogged her, and many expressed skepticism about her abilities due to her pageant past. Even after she rose to national prominence, first as a CBS news broadcaster and then as a Fox talk show host, Carlson continued—and continues—to be labeled as “dumb or a bimbo.” Her history clearly demonstrates that she is neither. However, Carlson’s overly earnest tone, combined with her desire to show her Minnesota “niceness…in action,” as well as the existence of “abundant brain cells,” dampens the book’s impact.
For the author’s fans.Pub Date: June 16, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-525-42745-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
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