Overview

In the seventy years since the demise of the Third Reich, there has been a significant transformation in the ways in which the modern world understands Nazism. In this brilliant and eye-opening collection, Richard J. Evans, the acclaimed author of the Third Reich trilogy, offers a critical commentary on that transformation, exploring how major changes in perspective have informed research and writing on the Third Reich in recent years. Drawing on his most notable writings from the last two decades, Evans reveals the shifting perspectives on Nazism's rise to political power, its economic intricacies, and its subterranean extension into postwar Germany. Evans considers how the Third Reich is increasingly viewed in a broader international context, as part of the age of imperialism; discusses the growing emphasis on the larger economic and cultural circumstances of the era; and emphasizes the development of research into Nazi society, particularly in the understanding of Nazi Germany as a political system based on popular approval and consent. Exploring the complex relationship between memory and history, Evans also points out the places where the growing need to confront the misdeeds of Nazism and expose the complicity of those who participated has led to crude and sweeping condemnation, when instead historians should be making careful distinctions. Written with Evans' sharp-eyed insight and characteristically compelling style, these essays offer a summation of the collective cultural memory of Nazism in the present, and suggest the degree to which memory must be subjected to the close scrutiny of history.

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9780190679170

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[Evans is] one of the English-speaking world's foremost historians of modern Germany...in these essays, as in so much of his scholarship, he is right on the mark. --<em>The Financial Times</em> Evans' careful discussion serves as a reminder of the naivete of thinking that dictators have no popular support in the countries they control, or that removing them is easy. But he also shows how unfair it is to assume that everyone (or even the majority of people) in a dictatorship is responsible for the regimes' actions. Collective guilt and collective innocence are appealing myths, but the realities of power are much messier. --<em>The Pacific Standard</em> Mr. Evans may now be a rather grand pillar of the historical establishment - a former Regius Professor of History at Cambridge University, 'Sir Richard' since he was knighted for services to scholarship in 2012 - but he shows no signs of settling into comfortable eminence. He thinks hard about what history is and how it is done... Mr. Evans has something of interest or importance to say on almost any aspect of [the Third Reich] that might come up. --<em>The Wall Street Journal</em> [A] lucid and informative essay collection. --<em>The Jewish Daily Forward</em>

[Evans is] one of the English-speaking world's foremost historians of modern Germany...in these essays, as in so much of his scholarship, he is right on the mark. --The Financial Times Evans' careful discussion serves as a reminder of the naivete of thinking that dictators have no popular support in the countries they control, or that removing them is easy. But he also shows how unfair it is to assume that everyone (or even the majority of people) in a dictatorship is responsible for the regimes' actions. Collective guilt and collective innocence are appealing myths, but the realities of power are much messier. --The Pacific Standard Mr. Evans may now be a rather grand pillar of the historical establishment - a former Regius Professor of History at Cambridge University, 'Sir Richard' since he was knighted for services to scholarship in 2012 - but he shows no signs of settling into comfortable eminence. He thinks hard about what history is and how it is done... Mr. Evans has something of interest or importance to say on almost any aspect of [the Third Reich] that might come up. --The Wall Street Journal [A] lucid and informative essay collection. --The Jewish Daily Forward -[Evans is] one of the English-speaking world's foremost historians of modern Germany...in these essays, as in so much of his scholarship, he is right on the mark.- --The Financial Times -Evans' careful discussion serves as a reminder of the naivete of thinking that dictators have no popular support in the countries they control, or that removing them is easy. But he also shows how unfair it is to assume that everyone (or even the majority of people) in a dictatorship is responsible for the regimes' actions. Collective guilt and collective innocence are appealing myths, but the realities of power are much messier.- --The Pacific Standard -Mr. Evans may now be a rather grand pillar of the historical establishment - a former Regius Professor of History at Cambridge University, 'Sir Richard' since he was knighted for services to scholarship in 2012 - but he shows no signs of settling into comfortable eminence. He thinks hard about what history is and how it is done... Mr. Evans has something of interest or importance to say on almost any aspect of [the Third Reich] that might come up.- --The Wall Street Journal -[A] lucid and informative essay collection.- --The Jewish Daily Forward

Author Information

Richard J. Evans is Regius Professor of History at Cambridge University. Knighted in 2012 for his services to scholarship, he is the author of many prizewinning and bestselling books, including his acclaimed study of the Third Reich, whose three volumes have been translated into twelve languages.

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