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Title details for Hitler's People by Richard J Evans - Available

Hitler's People

The Faces of the Third Reich

by Richard J Evans
Leighton Pugh
Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
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2 of 2 copies available
Named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews and Air Mail
“A fascinating and instructive book . . . elegantly written and perceptive.” —Wall Street Journal
“Kaleidoscopic . . . A fascinating exploration of individual agency that never loses sight of the larger context . . . Just the kind of probing, nuanced and unsparing study to help us think things through.” —The New York Times
Through a connected set of biographical portraits of key Nazi figures that follows power as it radiated out from Hitler to the inner and outer circles of the regime’s leadership, one of our greatest historians answers the enduring question, how does a society come to carry out a program of unspeakable evil?
Richard Evans, author of the acclaimed The Third Reich Trilogy and over two dozen other volumes on modern Europe, is our preeminent scholar of Nazi Germany. Having spent half a century searching for the truths behind one of the most horrifying episodes in human history, in Hitler’s People, he brings us back to the original site of the Nazi movement: namely, the lives of its most important members.
Working in concentric circles out from Hitler and his closest allies, Evans forms a typological framework of Germany society under Nazi rule from the top down. With a novelist’s eye for detail, Evans explains the Third Reich through the personal failings and professional ambitions of its members, from its most notorious deputies—like Goebbels, the regime’s propagandist, and Himmler, the Holocaust’s chief architect—to the crucial enforcers and instruments of the Nazi agenda that history has largely forgotten—like the schoolteacher Julius Streicher and the actress Leni Riefenstahl. Drawing on a wealth of recently unearthed historical sources, Hitler’s People lays bare the inner and outer lives of the characters whose choices led to the deaths of millions.
Nearly a century after Hitler’s rise, the leading nations of the West are once again being torn apart by a will to power. By telling the stories of these infamous lives as human lives, Evans asks us to grapple with the complicated nature of complicity, showing us that the distinctions between individual and collective responsibility—and even between pathological evil and rational choice—are never easily drawn.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    August 13, 2024

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593864661
      • File size: 617675 KB
      • Duration: 21:26:48

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Narrator Leighton Pugh's calm British demeanor provides an effective vehicle for this scathing critique of the Nazi character. In these two dozen brief biographies of Hitler and his circle, Pugh strips bare the venality and pretentiousness that characterized so many of the dictator's underlings: Goebbels and Goering, Himmler and Hess and Heydrich, and don't forget Albert Speer and Leni Riefenstahl. The portraits are unsparing, the indictments backed by compelling evidence. The opening biography of Hitler is largely familiar but provides a foundation and context for the individual portraits that follow, which by necessity parallel the same timeline. For those who don't know the history well, this audiobook proves an excellent vehicle for understanding the Nazi movement and the individuals who shaped it. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine
    • Library Journal

      December 20, 2024

      Historian Evans (The Hitler Conspiracies) draws on newly released documents to piece together compelling biographical accounts of the Third Reich's key players, who strategized to murder millions of people, and the ordinary Germans who made the genocide possible. Evans draws upon archival materials to provide an unsparing account of Nazi leaders and their followers as he focuses on the harm enacted by people who would later downplay their participation. Notorious, high-profile participants like Heinrich Himmler, Hermann G�ring, and Joseph Goebbels (whom Evans calls "Paladins") had long been antisemitic. Lesser-known middle-class citizens who aided and abetted the Nazis considered themselves mere supporters or observers, but Evans chillingly describes how their denouncement of family members and acquaintances led to the deaths of thousands. Narrator Leighton Pugh's impeccably paced audio presentation drives Evans's point home, forcing listeners to consider the dire consequences of German functionaries' everyday actions. VERDICT This superb audiobook concisely outlines the steps taken by ambitious individuals who were instrumental to the Nazi cause. The riveting biographies invite listeners to consider the human toll that is exacted when an allegedly civilized nation self-destructs.--Sharon Sherman

      Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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