The Third Reich at War

Nov 2, 2024 8:22 AM

Author:Richard J. Evans

The final book in his acclaimed trilogy on the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, Richard J. Evans's The Third Reich at War: How the Nazis Led Germany from Conquest to Disaster shows how Germany rushed headlong into destroying itself, shattering an entire continent.

In 1939 Hitler mobilized Germany into all-out war. Richard Evans's astonishing, acclaimed history conjures up a whole society plunged into conflict - from generals and front-line soldiers to Hitler Youth activists and middle-class housewives - tracing events from the invasion of Poland and the Battle of Stalingrad to Hitler's plans for genocide and his eventual suicide.

'Masterly ... will surely be the standard history for many years to come ... This is a warning for the future, as much as a judgement on the past'

  Richard Overy, Daily Telegraph

'We all know how the story ends ... but Richard Evans brings it masterfully home ... magnificent'

  Peter Preston, Observer

'A chilling, brilliant read'

Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year

'It is hard to do justice to the humanity and scholarly range of The Third Reich at War ... triumphant ... a masterful historical narrative and the most comprehensive account of Nazi Germany'

  Nicholas Stargardt, The Times Literary Supplement

'It gives the reader persuasive answers to questions asked for so long, that will continue to be asked, about this most violent and inexplicable of regimes'

  Mark Mazower, Guardian

Sir Richard J. Evans is Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University. His previous books include In Defence of History, Telling Lies about Hitler and the companions to this title, The Coming of the Third Reich and The Third Reich in Power.

Reviews

Wonderful stuff

—— Sunday Times

Fascinating, delightful, illuminating. The diarists soon become like old friends ... and make our wartime past seem no more distant than yesterday

—— Mail on Sunday

It's always easy to imagine people in this period becalmed in a sepia-toned limbo. This book tells the messy, but far more interesting, truth

—— Time Out

Few books have so successfully stepped inside the minds of the British people during wartime

—— Metro

A fascinating account of everyday life in Britain

—— Good Housekeeping

Vibrant, lyrical and engrossing

—— Daily Express

A mesmerising read

—— BBC History

One closes the books with the odd sense of saying farewell to a group of interesting and interestingly different individuals one might have encountered on a long journey

—— Sunday Times

I love these diaries. They have the attraction of being stories, but REAL stories - better than any novel

—— Margaret Forster

In her group biography of three monarchs, Carter has succeeded in painting their personalities in vivid colours...she brings an excellent biographer's eye for the telling detail...the great appeal of this book lies in it narration and comparative analysis of the life and personality of her imperial subjects...well-researched and expertly written...an engaging and remarkably even-handed portrayal

—— The Times Literary Supplement

That these three absurd men could ever have held the fate of Europe in their hands is a fact as hilarious as it is terrifying. I haven't enjoyed a historical biography this much since Lytton Strachey's Victoria

—— Zadie Smith

Miranda Carter writes with lusty humour, has a fresh clarifying intelligence, and a sharp eye for telling details. This is traditional narrative history with a 21st-century zing. A real corker of a book

—— History Today

A highly original way of looking at the years that led up to 1914

—— Antonia Fraser , Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year

Carter deftly interpolates history with psychobiography to provide a damning indictment of monarchy in all its forms

—— Will Self , New Statesmen Books of the Year

A depiction of bloated power and outsize personalities in which Carter picks apart the strutting absurdity of the last emperors on the eve of catastrophe

—— Financial Times Books of the Year

Takes what should have been a daunting subject and through sheer wit and narrative élan turns it into engaging drama. Carter has a notable gift for characterisation

—— Jonathan Coe , Guardian Books of the Year

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