Understand Nazi Germany is an accessible introduction to one of the most controversial and debated periods of history. The years 1933-45 witnessed the take-over of Germany by a man and a movement whose racial and political policies are now regarded with universal abhorrence, but which at the time were genuinely popular. This gripping study explains not only the key events, but their causes and impacts.
Understand Nazi Germany is an accessible introduction to one of the most controversial and debated periods of history. The years 1933-45 witnessed the take-over of Germany by a man and a movement whose racial and political policies are now regarded with universal abhorrence, but which at the time were genuinely popular. This gripping study explains not only the key events, but their causes and impacts.
As an increasingly polarized America fights over the legacy of racism, Susan Neiman, author of the contemporary philosophical classic Evil in Modern Thought, asks what we can learn from the Germans about confronting the evils of the past In the wake of white nationalist attacks, the ongoing debate over reparations, and the controversy surrounding Confederate monuments and the contested memories they evoke, Susan Neiman’s Learning from the Germans delivers an urgently needed perspective on how a country can come to terms with its historical wrongdoings. Neiman is a white woman who came of age in the civil rights–era South and a Jewish woman who has spent much of her adult life in Berlin. Working from this unique perspective, she combines philosophical reflection, personal stories, and interviews with both Americans and Germans who are grappling with the evils of their own national histories. Through discussions with Germans, including Jan Philipp Reemtsma, who created the breakthrough Crimes of the Wehrmacht exhibit, and Friedrich Schorlemmer, the East German dissident preacher, Neiman tells the story of the long and difficult path Germans faced in their effort to atone for the crimes of the Holocaust. In the United States, she interviews James Meredith about his battle for equality in Mississippi and Bryan Stevenson about his monument to the victims of lynching, as well as lesser-known social justice activists in the South, to provide a compelling picture of the work contemporary Americans are doing to confront our violent history. In clear and gripping prose, Neiman urges us to consider the nuanced forms that evil can assume, so that we can recognize and avoid them in the future.
Understand the Cold War provides a fascinating insight into this complicated and hidden conflict, from how it began to the main characters involved and the culture it created. It will help you understand how the superpowers grew and vied for dominance, and how the balance was lost. All the important aspects of the war are covered, from what JFK and his assassin had in common to a discussion of whether the tension ended after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Give yourself the opportunity to understand the global reach of this 45-year-long conflict, which shaped the latter half of the twentieth century. NOT GOT MUCH TIME? One, five and ten-minute introductions to key principles to get you started. AUTHOR INSIGHTS Lots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the author's many years of experience. EXTEND YOUR KNOWLEDGE Extra online articles at www.teachyourself.com to give you a richer understanding. THINGS TO REMEMBER Quick refreshers to help you remember the key facts. TRY THIS Innovative exercises illustrate what you've learnt and how to use it.
* Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award * Silver Medal Society of Illustrators * * Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Comics Beat, The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, Kirkus Reviews, and Library Journal This “ingenious reckoning with the past” (The New York Times), by award-winning artist Nora Krug investigates the hidden truths of her family’s wartime history in Nazi Germany. Nora Krug was born decades after the fall of the Nazi regime, but the Second World War cast a long shadow over her childhood and youth in the city of Karlsruhe, Germany. Yet she knew little about her own family’s involvement; though all four grandparents lived through the war, they never spoke of it. After twelve years in the US, Krug realizes that living abroad has only intensified her need to ask the questions she didn’t dare to as a child. Returning to Germany, she visits archives, conducts research, and interviews family members, uncovering in the process the stories of her maternal grandfather, a driving teacher in Karlsruhe during the war, and her father’s brother Franz-Karl, who died as a teenage SS soldier. In this extraordinary quest, “Krug erases the boundaries between comics, scrapbooking, and collage as she endeavors to make sense of 20th-century history, the Holocaust, her German heritage, and her family's place in it all” (The Boston Globe). A highly inventive, “thoughtful, engrossing” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune) graphic memoir, Belonging “packs the power of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and David Small’s Stitches” (NPR.org).
How American race law provided a blueprint for Nazi Germany Nazism triumphed in Germany during the high era of Jim Crow laws in the United States. Did the American regime of racial oppression in any way inspire the Nazis? The unsettling answer is yes. In Hitler's American Model, James Whitman presents a detailed investigation of the American impact on the notorious Nuremberg Laws, the centerpiece anti-Jewish legislation of the Nazi regime. Contrary to those who have insisted that there was no meaningful connection between American and German racial repression, Whitman demonstrates that the Nazis took a real, sustained, significant, and revealing interest in American race policies. As Whitman shows, the Nuremberg Laws were crafted in an atmosphere of considerable attention to the precedents American race laws had to offer. German praise for American practices, already found in Hitler's Mein Kampf, was continuous throughout the early 1930s, and the most radical Nazi lawyers were eager advocates of the use of American models. But while Jim Crow segregation was one aspect of American law that appealed to Nazi radicals, it was not the most consequential one. Rather, both American citizenship and antimiscegenation laws proved directly relevant to the two principal Nuremberg Laws—the Citizenship Law and the Blood Law. Whitman looks at the ultimate, ugly irony that when Nazis rejected American practices, it was sometimes not because they found them too enlightened, but too harsh. Indelibly linking American race laws to the shaping of Nazi policies in Germany, Hitler's American Model upends understandings of America's influence on racist practices in the wider world.
Mussolini's Italy is a compelling introduction to this infamous fascist dictator and his extraordinary rule. Though sometimes regarded as a farcical ruler, Mussolini's 'brutal friendship' with Hitler and his tyrannical killing of over a million people cannot be ignored as crucial aspects of modern European history. David Evans' pacy and nuanced analysis of the rise and fall of this colourful yet dangerous dictator, will keep you gripped from beginning to end.
This “extraordinary” memoir of a black man’s coming of age in Nazi Germany is “an entirely engaging story of accomplishment despite adversity.” —Washington Post Book World In Destined to Witness, Hans Massaquoi has crafted a beautifully rendered memoir—an astonishing true tale of growing up black in Nazi Germany. The son of a prominent African and a German nurse, Hans remained behind with his mother when Hitler came to power, after his father returned to Liberia. Like other German boys, Hans went to school; like other German boys, he swiftly fell under the Fuhrer’s spell. So he was crushed to learn that, as a black child, he was ineligible for the Hitler Youth. His path to a secondary education and an eventual profession was blocked. He now lived in fear that, at any moment, he might hear the Gestapo banging on the door—or Allied bombs falling on his home. Ironic, moving, and deeply human, Massaquoi’s account of this lonely struggle for survival brims with courage and intelligence. “A cry against racism, a survivor’s tale, a wartime adventure, a coming of age story, and a powerful tribute to a mother’s love.”—New Orleans Times-Picayune “An incredible tale . . . Exceptional.” —Chicago Sun Times “Destined to Witness examines a roller coaster of racism from different cultures and continents.” —The New York Times Book Review “Here is a story rarely lived and even more rarely told. We need this book for a balanced picture of the Holocaust.” —Maya Angelou “A nuanced, startling memoir.” —Kirkus Reviews “An engaging story of a young man’s journey through hate, self-enlightenment, intrigue and romance.” —Ebony
Here you'll learn about Germany's failing economy and poor working conditions which helped Adolf Hitler in his ascension to power. You will come away with a fuller understanding of the nation's political structure and culture, as well as Hitler's instruments of terror, treatment of Jews and women, concentration camps, and Germany's role in WWII. The Teach Yourself History series present all the facts and dates in a dynamic format that enables you to experience and understand the great historic events that shaped, and continue to influence, our world.
