In 1939 Hitler mobilized Germany into all-out war. This book 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.

Richard Evans' brilliant book unfolds perhaps the single most important story of the 20th century: how a stable and modern country in less than a single lifetime led Europe into moral, physical and cultural ruin and despair.

Examines how it was possible for a group of ideological obsessive to remould a society famous for its sophistication and complexity into a one-party state directed at war and race hate. Drawing on research and analysis, this book presents a picture of a dictatorship consumed by visceral hatreds and ambitions, and driven by war.

In this volume, English historian Richard Evans offers a defence of his craft. At a time of deep scepticism about our ability to learn anything from the past, even to recapture any serious sense of past cultures and ways of life, Evans shows us why history is possible and necessary.

A trenchant analysis of the evolution and motivations of British historians' fascination with the European continent.

Traces the rise and fall of German military might, against the background of the mobilization of the 'people's community' in the service of a war of conquest, racial subjugation and genocide. This work creates a picture of a society rushing headlong to self-destruction and taking a large part of Europe with it.

A trenchant analysis of the evolution and motivations of British historians' fascination with the European continent.