The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (1959) by William L Shirer. This is a monumental work, over 1100 pages long, documenting exhaustively the political story of Adolph Hitler and his henchmen in Germany during the years of Nazi ascendancy, approximately 1933-45. The subject is fascinating, but this book may contain more detail than the average reader would care for. One thing it has that is kind of tedious is lots and lots of footnotes, which add little tidbits of information which, though interesting, we might could have done without. One thing it lacks is maps, which would have been helpful in many cases to those who are not familiar with the map of Europe. Fortunately, these days we have the Internet, and it is easy to find many maps of any particular subject. Looking them up does draw out the process of reading the book, however. All in all, I felt that I had really accomplished something by plowing through this book, and in its pages I found many ideas for further reading. Even though most people I know can't even be troubled to read a short book, I find that this one deserves a Grade: A