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Explaining Hitler

The Search for the Origins of His Evil

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Explaining Hitler

By: Ron Rosenbaum
Narrated by: Steve Quinn
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About this listen

In Explaining Hitler, Ron Rosenbaum investigates the meanings and motivations people have attached to Hitler and his crimes against humanity. What does Hitler tell us about the nature of evil? In often dramatic encounters, Rosenbaum confronts historians, scholars, filmmakers, and deniers as he skeptically analyzes the key strains of Hitler interpretation.

A balanced and thoughtful overview of a subject both frightening and profound, this is an extraordinary quest, an expedition into the war zone of Hitler theories, “a provocative work of cultural history that is as compelling as it is thoughtful, as readable as it is smart” (New York Times).

First published in 1998 to rave reviews, Explaining Hitler became a New York Times-bestseller. This edition is an update of that classic and a critically important contribution to the study of the twentieth century's darkest moment.

©1998 by Ron Rosenbaum. (P)2023 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Afterword © 2014 by Ron Rosenbaum. Excerpt from The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler, by Robert G. L. Waite © 1977 by Robert G. L. Waite. Reprinted by permission of Basic Books, a subsidiary of Perseus Books Group LLC. Diane Cole: Excerpts from an interview between Diane Cole and Lucy Dawidowicz. Used by permission of Diane Cole. Neal Kozodoy, Literary Executor for the Estate of Lucy Dawidowicz: Excerpts from The War Against the Jews, by Lucy Dawidowicz, Reprinted by permission of Neal Kozodoy, Literary Executor for the Estate of Lucy Dawidowicz.
20th Century Germany Military Scary

Critic Reviews

"Brilliant...restlessly probing and deeply intelligent"Time

"A remarkable journey by one of the most original journalists and writers of our time"—David Remnick, author of Lenin's Tomb

"Fascinating...A provocative work of cultural history that is as compelling as it is thoughtful, as readable as it is smart.... Mr. Rosenbaum has made an important contribution to our understanding not just of Hitler, but of the cultural processes by which we try to come to terms with history as well.... He has written an exciting, lucid book informed by old-fashioned moral rigor and common sense."—Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

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Dated History

Most of what was written in this book (several decades ago) has been debunked. One would have thought an updated version would have been produced. Regardless the authors book marking other authors is sheer intellectual laziness. The book also had an Americans viewpoint of the subject though Henry Ford is mentioned once but not really as a catalyst. What is not mentioned is the fact that anti-Semitic thought was taught in German schools from the later medieval period right up to the end of WW2. With the full connivance of the German people… Hitler was born and nurtured. There is nothing vaguely mysterious about that. It was odds on that one disturbed borderline psychopath would take what was accepted in Germany as normal to its bloody and disgusting conclusion. Otherwise how could it have happened? In summary move on… there is nothing new to see here and a waste of time and money.

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