About this title: Before the Nazies could destroy the files, famed foreign correspondent and historian William L. Shirer sifted through the massive self-documentation of the Third Reich, to create a monumental study that has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of one of the most frightening chapters in the history of mankind.... "One of the most important works of history of our time." THE NEW YORK TIMES
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Fawcett
Date Published: 1985
ISBN-13:9780449209363ISBN:0449209369
Description: Acceptable. Overall below average used book. May have highlighting, underlining, notes, price sticker on cover, or be an ex-library book. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Date Published: 1960
Description: Fair+ No Jacket. 8vo. {012500} The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer. Published by Simon & Schuster in 1960. HARD COVER 8vo History: Hitler 1245pp. {Book Condition} FAIR+ NO JACKET {Jacket Condition Details} missing. {Book Condition Details} Binding: frayed ends, Cover: heavy edge wear, soiling, scuffing, End Papers: owner inscription(s) on front free endpaper, writing on rear free endpaper. {60-6729} read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Fawcett Crest Book
Date Published: 1960
Description: Good. Binding is tight and slightly arched. Text is clean and bright. Corners and edges slightly rubbed and bumped. Top right corner of cover clipped. Careful packaging and fast shipping. We recommend PRIORITY MAIL for even faster delivery! read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Fawcett Publications Inc., Conn
Date Published: 1960
Description: Good + No Jacket. 8vo. 1599pp. Has light wear. Covers lightly rubbed and soiled. Spine has some minor creasing. Internally Clean. Lang: English. Vols: 1, Wt: 1lbs. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Fawcett Books
Date Published: 1985
ISBN-13:9780449209363ISBN:0449209369
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. slight creasing and edge wear. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: Eight Printing, Jan.1978
Binding: Decorative Hardcover
Publisher: Simon & Schuster, New York
Date Published: 1960
Description: Used-Acceptable. No Jacket. Ex-Library-Book. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. 1245 pp. Some pages dog-eared. Front cover page has a waterstain mark. Library stamp on second front page. First front page missing. Haeavy wear and tear signs. Poor quality. Oversized/Overweight book; extra charges required! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Simon and Schuster, New York
Date Published: 1960
Description: Good + No DJ. Book Club Edition Tight spine, clean copy. Previous owner's name on fep. Brown cloth with black lettering on front and spine, edges rubbed, corners and spine bumped, boards lightly soiled. Endpapers are maps. 1245 Pgs. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Simon and Schuster, NY, 1960, Later Printing
Description: Octavo, hardcover, tan boards. Light wear to boards else VG. No dj. Maps of Third Reiich in 1933 on endpapers showing occupied territories. The bestseller that had massive impact as a historical treasure, a grisly and thrilling story showing one of the darkest dramas in the history of mankind. The definitive work on Nazi Germany. 1245 pp. and notes on author. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Crest, Greenwich Connecticut
Date Published: 1960
Description: Good. 21st printing. Later reprint cover price $2.95. 1599 pages indexed and bibliography. Very thick book that has been read a few times leaving a concave spine and some minor cover creases. Sound and tight with bright covers and no marks. read more
Edition: 1st Printing, 16th Printing, Stated
Binding: Cloth
Publisher: Simon and Schuster, New York
Date Published: 1960
Description: Very Good Plus/No Jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall Bound in brown cloth covers.1245 pages. Light wear to some edges. Front inner hinge cracked. Otherwise a tight, clean, complete copy with clean text. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Fawcett
Date Published: 1960
Description: Good. This book is in good used condition. The binding is tight and pages are clean. The cover has considerable wear with bumps, scuffs, creases and tears. There is creasing on the spine. read more
"I finished this a couple of months ago, all 1400+ pages of it, but no one cares. I CANNOT recommend this book highly enough--yet I don't know of anyone who wants to read it. (With the exception of my son's father-in-law; so I mailed it to him.) It was exceptional in so many ways. I had every emotion possible reading it. It made me realize why I have a minor in history. It made me realize that either I was mistaught or I misremember some of my WWII history. (Guess which I think it was!) Because it was written in 1960, so soon after the Nuremberg trials, I did a lot of Internet searches to find more recent updates, such as on Nazis that hadn't been found that soon after the war. It took me about 7 weeks to read it but that was just because of my lifestyle--it reads so much like a novel that I could easily have sat on my butt, ordered pizza, and settled in for the marathon it would've taken to read it straight through. Five stars don't even come close."
"Shirer was a journalist, and this work reads like a very, very long magazine feature article. He gives his book the immediacy of someone who lived through much of what he describes, making it very human, often biased, and always readable. At 1,400+ pages, he never wastes your time - that's a remarkable feat in itself."
"Hard to put down. Very good, but two major weaknesses: in Shirer's intense hatred for the Nazis he makes them too clownish to have been able to accomplish what they did. Easy to understand, but better if we came to share his feelings through a more dispassionate presentation of facts - they're more than sufficient. And even near 1200 pages it needs a few more - he sometimes leaves out background that would explain how important situations came to be, especially military and industrial ones. One day Hitler takes a wild gamble against vastly superior French forces by reoccupying the Rhineland; a few months later he has the most powerful military machine in Europe making mincemeat out of Poland overnight. We know the factories were humming in violation of Versailles, but what was produced when and in what numbers isn't much explained, nor how the army was grown so rapidly. And one day there are no German troops in Italy, then suddenly they're spread around the peninsula. How they got there and when, where, how many, what types of divisions - are hardly explained. (There are better explanations of these things when Germany confronts Russia in the East and the Allies in the West.)
Shirer also doesn't explain much about German developments of new military tactics and technologies, which were crucial to the Third Reich's rapid conquest of Europe (and to modern warfare generally) - these just appear with invasions and battles. Granted this is a history of the Reich, not a military history per se, but the Reich's history is as much military as anything else (though Shirer does shed interesting light on Germany's recovery from the Depression under the Nazis).
Both problems are probably partly due to the book's being written so soon after the events; Shirer seems to assume his reader is an informed person who lived during the war. Valuable as it is, the book's a reminder of why historians are skeptical of writing recent history. But it's still a classic and a page-turner at that. Also Shirer, besides having been a journalist in Germany from before Hitler's rise until 1940 (or '41?), did an enormous amount of research using a wealth of primary sources. This direct experience and considerable research probably make the book a must-read, but one to be supplemented."
"Shirer wrote what many people consider the comprehensive history of the Hitler era. I have to fault him for being TOO prejudiced against Hitler; there are limits to everything, and Hitler did do some good things for Germany despite the very many bad things that he did. The most important part of this book is the description of steps Hitler took after coming to power to consolidate his power and establish the dictatorship. America seems to have completely ignored the powerful lessons to be learned from here in its recent history, especially in the Bush years. Any political grouping should take note of this section and avoid allowing it to be duplicated: the consequences of failing to do show loom large in history and on the map of Europe. What the book fails to establish, and should, is that this history can be duplicated anywhere and at anytime. Such antics as happened were not a peculiar aberration attributable to Hitler's strange personality, but are possible in any society which surrenders its power to criticise its leaders and fails to hold them accountable for their errors."
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