Description
Book SynopsisThis balanced history offers a concise, readable introduction to Nazi Germany. Combining compelling narrative storytelling with analysis, Joseph W. Bendersky offers an authoritative survey of the major political, economic, and social factors that powered the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Now in its fifth edition, the book incorporates significant research of recent years, analysis of the politics of memory, postwar German controversies about World War II and the Nazi era, and more on non-Jewish victims. Delving into the complexity of social life within the Nazi state, it also reemphasizes the crucial role played by racial ideology in determining the policies and practices of the Third Reich. Bendersky paints a fascinating picture of how average citizens negotiated their way through both the threatening power behind certain Nazi policies and the strong enticements to acquiesce or collaborate. His classic treatment provides an invaluable overview of a subject that retains its historical significance and contemporary importance.
Trade ReviewThose looking for a concise description and explanation of Nazi Germany cannot do better than to read Joseph Bendersky's book, with its balanced and penetrating new introduction. Bendersky decries loose and polemical analogies based on the Nazi experience. But Nazism, he argues, does relate to some anti-democratic and anti-Semitic currents in the twenty-first century world.
-- Richard Breitman, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, American University
