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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 943.086
EAN num: 9780671728687
ISBN number: 0671728687
Label: Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 1264
Printing Date: November 15, 1990
Publishing house: Simon & Schuster
Sale Popularity Level: 15817
Studio: Simon & Schuster
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Since its publication in 1960, William L. Shirer's monumental study of Hitler's German Empire has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of this century's blackest hours. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers an unparalleled and thrillingly told examination of how Adolf Hitler nearly succeeded in conquering the world. With millions of copies in print around the globe, it has attained the status of a vital and enduring classic.
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Rated by buyers 
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For those who think preventive war is always bad, you should read this book. If there was any argument for preventive war against Hitler, especially before Munich, this is it. Appeasement was useless with Hitler. It only made him stronger and bolder.
Rated by buyers -
At well over a thousand pages, one might wonder how "readable" such a history could be, but Shirer's work is excellent. I won't repeat much of the acclaim already found here.
One stumbling block is that in a very few places the terminology is outdated, and most certainly not politically correct. For example, the homosexual leadership of the SA are described as "perverted" and "deviant", and its hard to say from the book whether they truly were or if this is just a 1950s label for gay. Similarly, the Japanese turned down negotiations with "Ah, so sorry, please". I doubt that's a direct quote.
Those two snags aside, the rest of the book holds up exceedingly well, and there are actually very few references that are lost on the modern reader, especially compared to the writings of, for example, Churchill, which are full of references to then-current names and events that have lost their relevance over time.
The thesis that the readiness to accept National Socialism was built into German culture and mythology of the day may not be a popular one, nor commonly accepted today, but Shirer provides enough supporting material that one can at least see his point.
Be prepared for a lot of detail: D-Day doesn't occur until well past page 1000, for example. One thing I loved however was that the book was not full of throwaway names that appear only once. That's usually an issue for me (names and dates that will be forgotten soon after reading) and this book is largely absent of them.
It's also relatively even, in that there are very few places where it drags. With few exceptions, the narrative progresses smoothly and its as much of a "page turner" as non-fiction can be.
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When you come to think of it, William L. Shirer was a CBS correspondent who was at the right place at the right time. He kept a diary of the happenings in Germany during the time of the formation of the Nazi government. He saw the political maneuvers of the Nazi Party in gaining power in German Politics. The audacity of the Party gaining control of a Democratic Government without a majority. The effect of a weak centralized government under President von Hindenburg leads to Nazism.
Shirer witnessed the formation of a totalitarian government. He saw the tightening of all cultural activities and the progressive pogroms against the Jews.
Shirer details all the scheming of the taking over of the Rhineland, Sudetenland and Austria. His plan to enter into war with Poland under false pretenses finally has England and France entering into the great conflict. Shirer was there recording all that had happened.
This book was very first published 14 years after the end of the Second World War. This exhaustive study was based on Shirer's observations, which in itself are classic. He was there. He saw it very first hand!! Richard Evans study seems to be a definitive study in the English language of this German time period. But remember, Evans has over 50 years of added data to analyze and report on.
This is a long read, but read it if you want to know about the great tragedy of the 20th Century.
Rated by buyers 
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I read this important book, here in Brazil.This book was published about 50 years ago.And even so, this book remains important.There are failures in this book.One is that about the war itself, it is just regular.Many things revealed, after the publication of this book, such as the breaking of Enigma code machine, has no space in this book.The author saw the fall of France in 1940; he realized that France fell because of lack of will to fight, not weapons.Even so, he is weak about France's fall, because only more a decade later, the people could to know that France had more and better tanks, than Germany in 1940. About the massive amount of money from then Soviet Union and from famous germans, such as Paul Warburg to the nazi party also has no place on this book.The book itself is a little more than regular, but there's a good thing about the author:he lived the Third Reich and the war.He was there.William L. Shirer saw the facts.There's better options about the Third Reich, than this book?Yes, but this book remains important, after 50 years.
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I must confess that this can be a debilitating and exhausting work to read, especially when one must plow through the section detailing the Nazi atrocities; considering the amount of literature published on the Holocaust since the 1970s people yesterday will not find much new here, anyway (and there is not as much information on the Holocaust as there is on the endeavor on Hitler's life). Shirer has his prejudices, including the anachronistic charge of homosexuality (or "perversion") leveled against Nazi leaders - a charge not unjustified in certain cases, but myopic in light of the Nazis' persecution of homosexuals. He is annoyingly simplistic in his characterizations of the most famous Nazi leaders (they are evil, and therefore unappealing, ineffectual, and unattractive - my goodness, how could such losers captivate a nation? Had they no magnetism, no charm?), and certainly there are omissions in his account of how Hitler rose to power (Britain's and even the United States' relationship with Nazi Germany was complex but is given short shrift), but overall this is an excellent resource on the subject, the very first definitive history of this era, comprehensive (although flawed), and a literary classic in its own right.
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