life of the most reviled man in history is always a tricky subject, Not the perspective which is universally one of the utmost horror but the manner of its telling, I think because AN Wilson has written "A Short Biography" of Adolf Hitler, that most will look upon this modest, and yes short,page book as inconsequential as such a study of this person must require far more pages to be worth the reading.
After all, how to compress the man who arguably shaped the modern world into its current incarnation, into such a relatively short book compared to say, Ian Kershaw's "Hubris" and "Nemesis" books totallingpages
Wilson does this by covering the facts in a swift, concise fashion without too much detail or extensive background minutiae than is absolutely necessary.
He doesn't miss out anything important but nor does he go into enormous detail which isn't to say that you come away with an incomplete idea of the man but that this book presents an informative biography of Hitler that will appeal to the nonacademic and casual student of history for whom someone like Kershaw is intimidating to pick up.
What's interesting about this biography is that Wilson has a biased opinion of Hitler like all of us he is disgusted with the Nazi regime and Hitler as a person, but unlike other biographers who adopt a neutral, justthefactsstance, Wilson frequently editorialises upon the events of Hitler's life as they unfold.
He berates the young Hitler for his foolishness and laziness in squandering his family's money in pursuing a fruitless art career and not attempting any form of work.
Thereafter, Wilson criticises every instance of Hitler's personality and actions, unapologetic to call Hitler and his cronies any number of names, but also grudgingly conceding that Hitler possessed extraordinary oratory skill and an erratic but charming personality that seduced many who came into his presence.
It's this approach of Wilson's, coupled with the brevity of the book, that I think have caused many people to look upon this book unfavourably and yet I feel these are two of the Hitler's assets.
That, and a few facts that I hadn't known about Hitler previously such as how the Olympic Torch tradition originated with the Nazis in theBerlin Games, and Wilson underlining a very important fact about Hitler: that many of his qualities which we detest today were shared by our ancestors.
His hatred of Jews and blacks were views that British, American and French governments also held, His modernity: he was an atheist who believed in science, rationality, and a somewhat crude and warped Darwinism, the rejection of religion, vegetarianism, and embracing technology, are generally qualities we look upon today as necessary to modern, forwardthinking people.
"Hitler: A Short Biography" is not an academic book in that it doesn't go into the kind of detail an academic would insist upon, but nor does it try to be that kind of book.
It is a populist book aimed at general readers with an interest in history, providing access to one of the most infamous people in human history, And in that, Wilson succeeds strongly, creating a wellwritten, concise and interesting overview of Hitler, A good insight into Hitler's life, Interesting, still difficult to understand how someone lacking in leadership skills and lazy could mesmerise a nation and Europe to commit the atrocities he did, This book was just what I was looking for, A brief introduction to one of the world most notorious megalomaniacs, It gave an interesting overview of Hitlers background, his rise to power, and the situation in Germany which made him the man of the moment, and encouraged his career to blossom.
The war was discussed in terms of Germanys triumphs and failures, Many people round the world saw it as “Hitlers War”, and given his determination to personally direct the army, this was not inappropriate,
A. N. Wilson is an excellent writer, What could have been a bareboned textbook was fleshed out with lots of characterization, concerning both Hitler and his cronies, and the nature of the Nazi party, He also pauses several times to ask “what if” to question whether the huge catastrophe that was the Second World War could have been avoided if one or two things had been different.
For such a short book I found it surprisingly thoughtful,
He also discusses the history of antiSemitism before and during the war, which is always shocking, I also learnt quite a lot, Besides the notorious incidents, he describes small issues too, For instance there was toothache in Germany during the war, as most of the German dentists had been Jewish, I also learnt the degree to which other countries were impervious to the plight of the Jews, And that in turn made me question how much that still happens today, with other people under severe duress,
This book has received several negative reviews, but I thought as a basic introduction to Hitler it was very good,
Not only is this book full of factual errors, its conclusion is terribly confused, It's also bad for the reader it is intended for, the general reader, as the sequence of event is hard to grasp fully unless you already know it.
The only good point about it is that the author doesn't come as boring, A delightfully wellwritten
book. It's also short. If you want a quick history, with appropriate cynical statements about Der Fuhrer, this is the one to read, AN Wilson is not afraid to be honest and literary and thought provoking, Nice research and though I knew much of the history, Wilson's presentation is immensely entertaining, A thoughtprovoking little book onlypages which details Hitler's childhood and rise to power and shows us where Hitler was quite ordinary and where extraordinary, And where barking mad. The author surmises that another Hitler is quite possible, So beware the nonsmoking, vegetarian who is good at oratory, prepared to blame a racial group and loves uniforms, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, Wagner and German shepherds apparently.
I'm visiting Germany at the end of the year, and thought I'd read something on Germany's most infamous leader beforehand, It was either this slim volume, Ian Kershaw's,page tome or Alan Bullock'spager, and with a bookcase full of other books crying out to be read I chose the quickest option.
A few times I regretted my choice so many momentous events are just skimmed over which became frustrating, But there are some insightful observations, eg that Hitler "embodied the views of any popular newspaper, any barparlour bore, from England to Russia, from France to Sicily, during his lifetime" and also ours.
Other opinions I found less convincing, for example his disdain for historians who engage in hypotheticals a "parlour game" he calls it, but then goes on to expound his own hypotheticals.
And sometimes it feels like he has an axe to grind: about Churchill about dogs "this smelly nearcousin of the wolf" and doglovers about modern political correctness,
I thought the final chapter, a provocative synthesis of Wilson's subject, the highlight of the book, Others will disagree, especially regarding the parts that amount to a sly attack on selfsatisfied liberalism,
My copy is a first edition which contained some factual errors that I believer were fixed in later editions, .