‘Ian Kershaw has long been recognized as the world expert on Adolf Hitler’s role in the Third Reich… this book is not likely to be bettered in the foreseeable future’.
‘Masterly… As readable and gripping as the first, it explains — the personality of Hitler more convincingly than anything else I’ve read and at the same time sets out in brilliant detail what happened to Germany as a whole during the Second World War’.
‘Rich in material, balanced, perceptive, humane and very well written — altogether a magnificent achievement’.
‘There is not a better and more complete biography of Hitler and his epoch — and it’s hard to imagine that it could soon be superseded’.
‘Monumental… This massive, extensively researched, extraordinarily balanced, and remarkably judicious study is likely to remain the definitive biography for a long time to come’.
‘This second volume of Ian Kershaw’s magnum opus is even more fascinating than its predecessor, Hubris’.
‘It is a masterly work; comprehensive, balanced, authoritative, and above all readable. If there is one book that explains Hitler’s success in securing and maintaining power, and in consequence the causes of the Second World War, this is it’.
‘A masterpiece which… leaves all previous Hitler biographies in the shade’.
‘Compared to the many others that came earlier, even the important and illuminating works by Alan Bullock and Joachim Fest, Kershaw’s large-scale study is more probing, more judicious, more authoritative in its rich detail and yet more commanding in its mastery of the horrific narrative’.
‘Enthralling and terrifying… this is classic narrative history at its best, written with verve and passion’.
‘An impressive, detailed, and sobering story’.