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Winner of the Wolfson Prize for History, Ian Kershaw's Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis is the concluding second volume of one of the greatest biographies of modern times.

No figure in twentieth century history more clearly demands a close biographical understanding than Adolf Hitler; and no period is more important than the Second World War.

Beginning with Hitler's startling European successes in the aftermath of the Rhineland occupation, from Czechoslovakia to Poland; addressing crucial questions about the unique nature of Nazi radicalism; exploring the Holocaust and the poisoned European world that allowed Hitler to operate so effectively; and ending nine years later with the suicide in the Berlin bunker, Kershaw allows us as never before to understand Hitler's motivation and impact.

'Magisterial ... anyone who wishes to understand the third reich must read Kershaw, for no on has done more to lay bare Hitler's morbid psyche'
Niall Ferguson, Sunday Telegraph

'An achievement of the very highest order ... a marvellous book'
Michael Burleigh, Financial Times

'No previous biographer has examined Hitler's devilishness in Kershaw's detail ... his book is so comprehensive, so richly documented and so judicious that it will not soon be superseded'
Daniel Johnson, Daily Telegraph

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.

Review

Winner of the Wolfson History Prize, the Bruno Kreisky Prize in Austria for Political Book of the Year, and the inaugural British Academy Book Prize. ― Prizes and awards

Magisterial ... anyone who wishes to understand the third reich must read Kershaw, for no on has done more to lay bare Hitler's morbid psyche -- Niall Ferguson ― Sunday Telegraph

An achievement of the very highest order ... Kershaw communicates a genuine sense of tension as Hitler embarked on ever-riskier stratagems, bringing a fresh eye to the over-familiar diplomatic or military story ... a marvellous book -- Michael Burleigh ― Financial Times

Extraordinarily convincing ... I do not know any other Hitler biography that so coolly, factually and devastatingly presents the phenomena of "obedience" and charisma -- Gitta Sereny ― The Times

For the present generation, Kershaw's Hitler stands as our clear beacon of truth, illuminating a dark age of terror and mendacity -- Craig Brown ― Mail on Sunday

No previous biographer has examined Hitler's devilishness in Kershaw's detail ... his book is so comprehensive, so richly documented and so judicious that it will not soon be superseded -- Daniel Johnson ― Daily Telegraph

A riveting narrative ... the text positively crackles with fascinating insights and interesting perceptions ... this is unquestionably an outstanding biography -- Frank McLynn ― Herald

About the Author

Ian Kershaw is the author of Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris and Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis, which received the Wolfson Literary Award for History and the Bruno Kreisky Prize in Austria for the Political Book of the Year, and was joint winner of the inaugural British Academy Book Prize. His other books include Making Friends with Hitler, which won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography; Fateful Choices; The End; and his histories of modern Europe, To Hell and Back and Roller-Coaster.

Review:

4.9 out of 5

98.46% of customers are satisfied

5.0 out of 5 stars Very detailed.

m. · 13 February 2024

Reading the first book and if it's anything like that it will be an excellent read. Very detailed and flows well.

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning, terrifying, compulsive reading.

H. · 16 October 2010

This second half of Prof Kershaw's Hiltler biography is a masterwork. Accepted as the best single reference in modern Germany, this very large, detailed, yet readable tome is peerlessly researched and written with justified authority. For anyone interested in the tragedies encapsulated within the rise and fall of the Third Reich it is a 'must read'.Mankind has produced an awful crop of depspotic, tyrannical leaders, but surely none like Herr Hitler. Yet, there are still a volatile minority who support the Nazi movement and hold up Hitler as a god-like figure. It's a mad world.....

5.0 out of 5 stars Kershaw does it again.

M.M.H. · 9 January 2014

What an author. Superb book, extremely well researched, as you would expect from Kershaw. This book is more than just another overview of Adolf and his mottley bunch. Kershaw takes the reader across the Nazi term in office at a god pace, yet missing nothing of importance. As always, his accounts of Hitler's thought processes, the cruelty and sheer follies of Nazism are fully exposed for what they are. The Allied response to the expansion of Germany is also well set out. As a student of Soviet Russia, I found this book far more than a "duplication" of Kershaw's other mighty works on Hitler. A very good additional, authoritative read indeed.

4.0 out of 5 stars The Drama is Unremitting to the End

c. · 18 June 2014

What I found most interesting in this second volume was how as a military leader, Hitler's instincts were nearly always wrong, once the tide began to turn against him as it did at Stalingrad.He was incapable of surrender and fundamentally believed, so he said, that the cause, in success or failure, was more important than saving lives, or any survival of the Reich based on any form of compromise.With the possible exception of Goebbels, nearly all his followers wanted to try and strike a deal before the Reich sank into the marshes, but Hitler would not budge an inch, and didn't totally give up hope of a change of fortune until hours before his bunker suicide, with Russian shells dropping in the garden above.The character of his main lieutenants, notably Goring, Goebbels, Bormann and Speer emerge clearly from this volume.As I said in my review of the first volume, this is not a history of the Third Reich but a biography of Hitler and as such many details of the war are absent.Kershaw's style is a little heavyhanded. He refers to his sources only by numbers of notes at the rear, so in a literary sense everything is presented without much evidence. The evidence is there of course, I am not doubting his scholarship, but it isn't the most engaging read.This is compensated for however by the drama of the story he has to tell. There is plenty to say about the plight of the German people and their gradually changing mood and attitude to Hitler.

5.0 out of 5 stars Hitler 1936-45 Nemesis by Ian kershaw

M.J.E.P. · 2 May 2014

Ian Kershaw is one of my favourite WW2 authors, and I have enjoyed all of his books immensely. But this book is in my opinion is his very best piece of work, also it is my favourite WW2 book by any author, and I have read scores of them. The book showed not only the dark side of Hitler and the influence that dark side had upon the world. But it offered an insight into the why's and how's of his thinking. Not only did it focus on Hitler, but also on those around him, the pressures he put them under, the rewards he offered and punishment for failure. It describes his mentality and showed how that mentality effected politics,everyday lives, battles and military thinking.This book I cannot recommend enough, if there was a ten star rating that would perhaps be enough.

5.0 out of 5 stars The best biography I have ever read he describes in detail ...

P.I. · 22 May 2015

The best biography I have ever read he describes in detail the twisted mind of the biggest monster of the 20th century. In Nemesis h e describes how Hitler's evil but magnetic personality slavishly dragged the German people into a war of annihilation with the whole of Europe. He describes how Hitler used the fear the France and Britain of been dragged into another world war and used it to get his hand on the Sudentland. He also describes in great detail on how facing complete defeat Hitler lost attachment with the reality around and kept Germany on the fast track to ruin. I would recommend this book to any body interested in 20th century history.

5.0 out of 5 stars I remember.

j. · 25 March 2024

Being 90 plus, I was reliving my childhood and remembering so much of this. I read the newspapers avidly every day during the war.

5.0 out of 5 stars Book

J.C. · 14 December 2022

Great thank you

As advertised

L.S. · 25 June 2022

Used book came in excellent condition and my Dad loves it.

Must read it once..

P. · 20 October 2018

Good book.

Une biographie politique et collective

A. · 6 March 2017

Ian Kershaw a fait le choix de ne pas s'attacher au personnel tant la figure d'Hitler et son impact sur l'Allemagne et le monde fut une œuvre politique, le résultat d'un parcours idéologique porté jusqu'à son paroxysme le plus destructeur. Le personnel alors se mêle avec les forces politiques et sociales qui permirent à Hitler d'imposer jusqu'à la fin pratiquement sa vision autoritaire et génocidaire. Le tome 2 de la biographie est en lui-même une somme car il couvre la période allant de 1936 (où Hitler, ayant la main sur les affaires intérieures de l'Allemagne commence à poser les jalons de l'expansionnisme nazi) à 1945 (la chute et la fin d'Hitler - sa description des derniers jours dans le bunker berlinois est saisissant de réalisme). Tout y est intéressant, dense et précis. L'enchainement qui aboutit au génocide des juifs est décrit avec minutie. Les opérations en Russie et l'implication d'Hitler dans les détails des opérations militaires est passionnant. Ce sont là surement les éléments les plus cruciaux de cette histoire aussi épique que profondément tragique pour les hommes. Il faut un peu de temps pour venir à bout de cette somme mais elle est pleine d'enseignement, encore aujourd'hui malheureusement. Dans la biographie d'Hitler c'est toute une époque que nous revivons.

An Unsurpassed Account of the Rise and Fall

d. · 27 February 2015

This book, along with volume 1, is amazing piece of work--exhaustive and at times exhausting, but for the most part eminently readable. The opening paragraph, from volume 1, is indicative of Kershaw's talent: "The first of many good strokes of fortune for Adolf Hitler took place thirteen years before he was born. In 1876, the man who was to become his father changed his name from Alois Schicklgruber to Alois Hitler....Certainly, 'Heil Schicklgruber' would have sounded an unlikely salutation to a national hero." That paragraph also presents one of the recurring themes in Kershaw's rendering: that without several instances of "the luck of the devil" (as Kershaw puts it in the chapter on the Valkyrie assasination plot that in 1944 came so close to being successful) Hitler might never have come to power or his reign might have ended considerably earlier. The subtitles of these two volumes--HUBRIS and NEMESIS--also succintly summarize the arc of Hitler's career as demagogue: his defiance of the Versailles Treaty after WWI and his incursions into Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Poland were met with virtually no resistance, leading him to believe in his infallibility when he decided not only to enter a war on two fronts but to take command himself of the armed forces, repeatedly overruling his military leaders and sending troops into hopeless battles. Kershaw portrays Hitler, after he could no longer pretend that his Reich would be triumphant, as fashioning for himself an epic (Wagnerian) ending, a conflagration that would consume him as well as the minions that had proven themselves unworthy of his leadership.Besides being strictly speaking a biography of Hitler, these two volumes make up another version of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich--that is, there is a wealth of detail about political, social, and military history. This detail can be overwhelming--keeping track of just the military leaders involved in the war is mind-boggling, since so many fell in and out of Hitler's favor over the years. There is a glossary of much-used abbreviations (SA, SS, SD, SPD, etc, etc) which is very helpful; I wish there had been something like a personnel list as well, since the cast of characters is enormous. There are a fair number of maps, but when it came to all the military maneuvering, I could have used much more help. Still, I can't recommend highly enough these two volumes to anyone curious about Hitler and his regime.Footnote: In 2008 Kershaw abridged his 2-volume work into a shorter one (only 1072 pages!) called HITLER: A BIOGRAPHY. In September he published THE END: THE DEFIANCE AND DESTRUCTION OF HITLER'S GERMANY, 1944-1945, which I am tempted to buy, though it's hard to imagine what can be added to that subject that wasn't covered in NEMESIS.

incredible book, a true revelation

d. · 9 April 2016

To put it succinctly: this book is amazing. It explains how Hitler was possible, because an educated and cultured society decided to support him. If you want to know how and why this could happen, this is your book. The reading can get a little hard at times, but you will be rewarded. However, volume 1 (Hubris) should be read before this one - at least, you should have some basic knowledge of Hitler's life before 1936. The author also assumes that his readers know the general facts about the Second World War.

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Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis

Name: Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis
Brand: Penguin
SKU: K0140272399
Price: 11.57 BHD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.7 (13 reviews)

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