One of the great historians of our age asks: how far can a single leader alter the course of history? The modern era saw the emergence of individuals who had command over a terrifying array of instruments of control, persuasion and death. Whole societies were re-shaped and wars fought, often with a merciless contempt for the most basic norms. At the summit of these societies were leaders whose personalities had somehow given them the ability to do whatever they wished. Ian Kershaw's new book is a compelling, lucid and challenging attempt to understand these rulers, whether operating on the widest stage (Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini) or with a more national impact (Tito, Franco). What was it about these leaders and the times they lived in that allowed them such untrammelled and murderous power? And what brought that era to an end? In a contrasting group of profiles, from Churchill to de Gaulle, Adenauer to Gorbachev, and Thatcher to Kohl, Kershaw uses his exceptional skills to think through how other, strikingly different figures wielded power.

"Chilling... To Hell and Back should be required reading in every chancellery, every editorial cockpit and every place where peevish Euroskeptics do their thinking.... Kershaw documents each and every 'ism' of his analysis with extraordinary detail and passionate humanism."-The New York Times Book Review The Penguin History of Europe series reaches the twentieth century with acclaimed scholar Ian Kershaw's long-anticipated analysis of the pivotal years of World War I and World War II. The European catastrophe, the long continuous period from 1914 to 1949, was unprecedented in human history-an extraordinarily dramatic, often traumatic, and endlessly fascinating period of upheaval and transformation. This new volume in the Penguin History of Europe series offers comprehensive coverage of this tumultuous era. Beginning with the outbreak of World War I through the rise of Hitler and the aftermath of the Second World War, award-winning British historian Ian Kershaw combines his characteristic original scholarship and gripping prose as he profiles the key decision makers and the violent shocks of war as they affected the entire European continent and radically altered the course of European history. Kershaw identifies four major causes for this catastrophe: an explosion of ethnic-racist nationalism, bitter and irreconcilable demands for territorial revisionism, acute class conflict given concrete focus through the Bolshevik Revolution, and a protracted crisis of capitalism. Incisive, brilliantly written, and filled with penetrating insights, To Hell and Back offers an indispensable study of a period in European history whose effects are still being felt today.

The amazing adventures of a woman with a fist in her head. Clara Darcy is fit! She's also (almost) care-free, (kind of) happily single and joyously dancing through life but, little does she know, her world is about to be turned upside down thanks to the arrival of a fist - slap-bang in the middle of her head. Based on her astonishing real-life story, We Should Definitely Have More Dancing explores the things that define us, that fill us up and make us who we are - a cautionary postcard from the edge of life stuffed full of heart and love and dancing. First produced by Oldham Coliseum Theatre, this edition was published to coincide with the world premiere production at Oldham Coliseum Theatre, followed by a national tour and run at the Assembly Rooms as part of Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

The internationally distinguished contributors to this landmark volume represent a variety of approaches to the Nazi and Stalinist regimes. These far-reaching essays provide the raw materials towards a comparative analysis and offer the means to deepen and extend research in the field. The first section highlights similarities and differences in the leadership cults at the heart of the dictatorships. The second section moves to the 'war machines' engaged in the titanic clash of the regimes between 1941 and 1945. A final section surveys the shifting interpretations of successor societies as they have faced up to the legacy of the past. Combined, the essays presented here offer unique perspectives on the most violent and inhumane epoch in modern European history.

An internationally distinguished team of historians of Nazism and Stalinism provide a summary of the most up-to-date research and offer new perspectives on issues linking the two most terrible dictatorships of modernity. Three selected themes are explored: the leadership cults of Hitler and Stalin; the "war machines" engaged in the deadly clash of 1941 to 1945; and the ways in which interpretations of the past have shifted in Germany and Russia since the demise of the dictatorships.

Operation Foxley was the name of the secret plan supported by Winston Churchill to assassinate Hitler in 1944-45. More than 75 years after its conception, the assassination plan remains shrouded in mystery. Eric Lee's new book is the product of painstaking research and sheds more light on this plan. Lee also asks what would have happened if Foxley had been executed successfully. Concocted in 1944 by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), Foxley's objective was to kill Hitler and any high-ranking Nazis or members of the Fuhrer's entourage who might have been present at the time. Different methods of assassination had been considered by the SOE, but were ultimately deemed too complicated. These methods included derailment and destruction of the Hitler's personal train, the Fuhrerzug, by explosives, and also clandestine means such as slipping a tasteless poison into Hitler's drinking and cooking water. Some of the ideas were considered quite bizarre, including one scheme to hypnotise Rudolf Hess and return him to Germany to kill Nazi leaders. The Americans and Soviets had their own plans to kill Hitler too, with some equally strange ideas (including injecting female hormones into the Fuhrer's vegetables). Eventually, after intel gathered revealed that Hitler took a routine, solitary walk every morning to the Teehaus on the Mooslahnerkopf Hill from the Berghof residence, a plan was created to assassinate Hitler using a sniper rifle fitted with a silencer. A perfect investigation for readers who enjoy reading about modern historyl, and the Second World War in particular. It is also tailored to those with an interest in the secret war , covering topics like the SOE, and military intelligence.

Explores the nature and mechanics of Hitler's power and how he used it.

Adolf Hitler has left a lasting mark on the twentieth century as the dictator Germany and instigator of a genocidal war, culminating in the ruin of much of Europe and the globe. So why, of all the fanatics in Germany after the First World War was it Hitler who found such a mass appeal? How did such an unimpressive figure some to take control of the machinery of a complex modern state?

This is valuable reading for anyone wanting a better understanding of the Second World War or Germany and Europe in the twentieth century.

Named Book of the Year by the Sunday Times, TLS, Spectator, Sunday Telegraph, Daily Mail and Scotland on Sunday, Ian Kershaw's The End is a searing account of the final months of Nazi Germany, laying bare the fear and fanaticism that drove a nation to destruction. In almost every major war there comes a point where defeat looms for one side and its rulers cut a deal with the victors, if only in an attempt to save their own skins. In Hitler's Germany, nothing of this kind happened: in the end the regime had to be stamped out town by town with an almost unprecedented level of brutality. Just what made Germany keep on fighting? Why did its rulers not cut a deal to save their own skins? And why did ordinary people continue to obey the Fuhrer's suicidal orders, with countless Germans executing their own countrymen for desertion or defeatism? 'Nuanced and sophisticated ... undoubtedly a masterpiece' - Mail on Sunday 'Gripping yet scholarly ... the best attempt by far to answer the complex question of why Nazi Germany carried on fighting to total self-destruction' - Antony Beevor, Telegraph 'Masterly ... Kershaw's gripping and boldly intelligent work of scholarship ... will surely become the standard account of the Nazi system's terrible final phase' - Financial Times 'Brilliant ... utterly terrifying' - Sunday Times, Books of the Year

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER SHORTLISTED FOR THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE 2020 'Brilliant ... a historical masterpiece' The Times Literary Supplement From one of Britain's most distinguished historians and the bestselling author of Hitler, this is the definitive history of a divided Europe, from the aftermath of the Second World War to the present. After the overwhelming horrors of the first half of the 20th century, described by Ian Kershaw in his previous book as having gone 'to Hell and back', the years from 1950 to 2017 brought peace and relative prosperity to most of Europe. Enormous economic improvements transformed the continent. The catastrophic era of the world wars receded into an ever more distant past, though its long shadow continued to shape mentalities. Europe was now a divided continent, living under the nuclear threat in a period intermittently fraught with anxiety. Europeans experienced a 'roller-coaster ride', both in the sense that they were flung through a series of events which threatened disaster, but also in that they were no longer in charge of their own destinies: for much of the period the USA and USSR effectively reduced Europeans to helpless figures whose fates were dictated to them by the Cold War. There were striking successes - the Soviet bloc melted away, dictatorships vanished and Germany was successfully reunited. But accelerating globalization brought new fragilities. The impact of interlocking crises after 2008 was the clearest warning to Europeans that there was no guarantee of peace and stability. In this remarkable book, Ian Kershaw has created a grand panorama of the world we live in and where it came from. Drawing on examples from all across the continent, Roller-Coaster will make us all rethink Europe and what it means to be European.

What is it that you would want to be preserved for eternity? A man wakes in the middle of the night to discover that the world has stopped. Through the crack in his bedroom curtains he can see no signs of life at all...other than a light in the house opposite where a woman in an oversized Bowie T-shirt stands, looking back at him. The Greatest Play in the History of the World is a beautifully constructed love story, set on Preston Road and also in space and in time. Presented as a monologue for one actor, it asks profound questions with deepest sincerity whilst simultaneously balancing the human quest for meaningful connections. This edition was published to coincide with the play's run at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh in summer 2018 starring Julie Hesmondhalgh.

One of the great historians of our age asks: how far can a single leader alter the course of history? The modern era saw the emergence of individuals who had command over a terrifying array of instruments of control, persuasion and death. Whole societies were re-shaped and wars fought, often with a merciless contempt for the most basic norms. At the summit of these societies were leaders whose personalities had somehow given them the ability to do whatever they wished. Ian Kershaw's new book is a compelling, lucid and challenging attempt to understand these rulers, whether operating on the widest stage (Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini) or with a more national impact (Tito, Franco). What was it about these leaders and the times they lived in that allowed them such untrammelled and murderous power? And what brought that era to an end? In a contrasting group of profiles, from Churchill to de Gaulle, Adenauer to Gorbachev, and Thatcher to Kohl, Kershaw uses his exceptional skills to think through how other, strikingly different figures wielded power.

'Superb ... likely to become a classic' Observer In the summer of 1914 most of Europe plunged into a war so catastrophic that it unhinged the continent's politics and beliefs in a way that took generations to recover from. The disaster terrified its survivors, shocked that a civilization that had blandly assumed itself to be a model for the rest of the world had collapsed into a chaotic savagery beyond any comparison. In 1939 Europeans would initiate a second conflict that managed to be even worse - a war in which the killing of civilians was central and which culminated in the Holocaust. To Hell and Back tells this story with humanity, flair and originality. Kershaw gives a compelling narrative of events, but he also wrestles with the most difficult issues that the events raise - with what it meant for the Europeans who initiated and lived through such fearful times - and what this means for us.

Now available in a single, abridged paperback, Ian Kershaw's Hitler is the definitive biography of the Nazi leader. Ian Kershaw's two volume biography, Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris and Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis, was greeted with universal acclaim as the essential work on one of the most malign figures in history, from his earliest origins to the final days of the Second World War. Now this landmark historical work is available in one single, abridged edition, tracing the story of how a bitter, failed art student from an obscure corner of Austria rose to unparalleled power, destroying the lives of millions and bringing the world to the brink of Armageddon. 'Supersedes all previous accounts. It is the sort of masterly biography that only a first-rate historian can write' David Cannadine, Observer 'The Hitler biography for the twenty-first century' Richard Evans, Sunday Telegraph 'I cannot imagine a better biography of this great tyrant emerging for a long while' Jeremy Paxman 'Magisterial ... anyone who wishes to understand the Third Reich must read Kershaw, for no one has done more to lay bare Hitler's morbid psyche' Niall Ferguson, Sunday Telegraph 'For the present generation, Kershaw's Hitler stands out as a clear beacon of truth, illuminating a dark age of terror and mendacity' Mail on Sund 'An achievement of the very highest order' Michael Burleigh, Financial Times Ian Kershaw (b. 1943) was Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield from 1989-2008, and is one of the world's leading authorities on Hitler. His books include The 'Hitler Myth', his two volume biography Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris and Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis, and Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-1941. He was knighted in 2002.

A deeply insightful social history of Hitler's rise to power and the attitudes of the German people during the era of the Third Reich This book is the culmination of more than three decades of meticulous historiographic research on Nazi Germany by one of the period's most distinguished historians. The volume brings together the most important and influential aspects of Ian Kershaw's research on the Holocaust for the first time. The writings are arranged in three sections-Hitler and the Final Solution, popular opinion and the Jews in Nazi Germany, and the Final Solution in historiography-and Kershaw provides an introduction and a closing section on the uniqueness of Nazism. Kershaw was a founding historian of the social history of the Third Reich, and he has throughout his career conducted pioneering research on the societal causes and consequences of Nazi policy. His work has brought much to light concerning the ways in which the attitudes of the German populace shaped and did not shape Nazi policy. This volume presents a comprehensive, multifaceted picture both of the destructive dynamic of the Nazi leadership and of the attitudes and behavior of ordinary Germans as the persecution of the Jews spiraled into total genocide.

'I go with the certainty of a sleepwalker along the path laid out for me by Providence' Adolf Hitler, 14 March 1936

More than half a century after his suicide and the destruction of his entire movement, Hitler continues to prey on the modern mind to a degree which is quite unique. The sheer scale of the evils he unleashed on the world have made him a demonic figure without equal in modern history.

Ian Kershaw's Hitler allows us to come closer than ever before to a serious understanding of the man and of the catastrophic sequence of events which allowed a bizarre misfit to climb from a Viennese doss-house to leadership of one of Europe's most sophisticated countries.

With extraordinary skill and vividness, drawing on a huge range of sources, this biography re-creates the world which first thwarted and then nurtured the young Hitler - from his Habsburg provincial roots to pre-War Vienna, from the crucible of the Great War to the toxic political world of 1920s Bavaria.

As Hitler's seemingly pitiful fantasy of being Germany's saviour attracted more and more support, Kershaw brilliantly conveys why so many Germans adored him, connived with him or felt powerless to resist him. At so many points the German élites could have prevented Hitler's rise but each time they misjudged the monster in their midst, until it was too late.

The book ends in 1936 with the march into the Rhineland. Through this extraordinary coup Hitler gained an unassailable hold over both the German people and the German military. Looking back on his astonishing triumphs Hitler now fully believed in his own cult: there was nothing he could not achieve. With Germany now firmly (and willingly) under his heel, he turned his eyes to the wider world.

From his illegitimate birth in a small Austrian village to his fiery death in a bunker under the Reich chancellery in Berlin, Adolf Hitler left a murky trail, strewn with contradictory tales and overgrown with self-created myths. One truth prevails: the sheer scale of the evils that he unleashed on the world has made him a demonic figure without equal in this century. Ian Kershaw's Hitler brings us closer than ever before to the character of the bizarre misfit in his thirty-year ascent from a Viennese shelter for the indigent to uncontested rule over the German nation that had tried and rejected democracy in the crippling aftermath of World War I. With extraordinary vividness, Kershaw recreates the settings that made Hitler's rise possible: the virulent anti-Semitism of prewar Vienna, the crucible of a war with immense casualties, the toxic nationalism that gripped Bavaria in the 1920s, the undermining of the Weimar Republic by extremists of the Right and the Left, the hysteria that accompanied Hitler's seizure of power in 1933 and then mounted in brutal attacks by his storm troopers on Jews and others condemned as enemies of the Aryan race. In an account drawing on many previously untapped sources, Hitler metamorphoses from an obscure fantasist, a "drummer" sounding an insistent beat of hatred in Munich beer halls, to the instigator of an infamous failed putsch and, ultimately, to the leadership of a ragtag alliance of right-wing parties fused into a movement that enthralled the German people.

This volume, the first of two, ends with the promulgation of the infamous Nuremberg laws that pushed German Jews to the outer fringes of society, and with the march of the German army into the Rhineland, Hitler's initial move toward the abyss of war.

Few twentieth-century political leaders enjoyed greater popularity among their own people than Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s. The German people's admiration rested less on the bizarre and arcane precepts of Nazi ideology than on social and political values recognizable in many societies other than the Third Reich. Kershaw charts the creation, growth, and decline of the 'Hitler myth', and demonstrates how the manufactured Führer-cult formed a crucial integrating force in the Third Reich and a vital element in the attainment of Nazi political aims.

Ian Kershawas biography of Adolf Hitler is widely regarded as the definitive work on the subject, as well as one of the most brilliant biographies of our time. In "Making Friends with Hitler," the great scholar shines remarkable new light on decisions that led to war by tracing the extraordinary story of Lord Londonderryaone of Britainas wealthiest aristocrats, cousin of Winston Churchill, confidant of the king, and the only British cabinet member to outwardly support the Nazi party. Through Londonderryas tragic tale, Kershaw shows us that behind the accepted dogma of English appeasement and German bullying is a much more complicated and interesting realityafull of miscalculations on both sides that proved to be among the most fateful in history.

Britain, as the most powerful of the European victors of World War One, had a unique responsibility to maintain the peace in the aftermath of the Treaty of Versailles. The outbreak of a second, even more catastrophic war in 1939 has therefore always raised painful questions about Britain's failure to deal with Nazism. Could some other course of action have destroyed Hitler when he was still weak? In this highly disturbing new book, Ian Kershaw examines this crucial issue. He concentrates on the figure of Lord Londonderry grandee, patriot, cousin of Churchill and the government minister responsible for the RAF at a crucial point in its existence. Londonderry's reaction to the rise of Hitler - to pursue friendship with the Nazis at all costs - raises fundamental questions about Britain's role in the 1930s and whether in practice there was ever any possibility of preventing Hitler's leading Europe once again into war.

It is impossible to offer an adequate parallel to Hitler's situation in 1936. With the peaceful resolution of the Rhineland crisis, Hitler became both the adored object of the vast majority of Germans and an international symbol of modernity and dynamism. He managed this while in reality being the dictator of a system of single-minded viciousness new to human experience. In this book, drawing on a vast range of material, Ian Kershaw allows us to understand both the dictator himself and the society that made him. Perhaps this book's greatest achievement is to make clear the often conflicting dynamics that led from the seemingly stable, successful Germany of 1937 to the brutalised military state of the 1940s. By concentrating on the figure of Hitler, Kershaw both gives an immediate texture to these terrible events and shows the options available to Germany and its ruler at each point in the unfolding disaster. At the heart of the book lies Hitler's decision to unleash annihilatory war in the East and the terrifying new moral universe this brought into being: the degradation of enemies into "beasts" and the hatching of the "Final Solution". This is the story of a poisoned world and of

Ian Kershaw's Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-41 offers a penetrating insight into a series of momentous political decisions that shaped the course of the Second World War. The hurricane of events that marked the opening of the Second World War meant that anything could happen. For the aggressors there was no limit to their ambitions; for their victims a new Dark Age beckoned. Over the next few months their fates would be determined. In Fateful Choices Ian Kershaw re-creates the ten critical decisions taken between May 1940, when Britain chose not to surrender, and December 1941, when Hitler decided to destroy Europe's Jews, showing how these choices would recast the entire course of history. 'Powerfully argued ... important ... this book actually alters our perspective of the Second World War' Andrew Roberts 'This fascinating, closely-argued book adds to our understanding of a terrible war' Alan Massie 'A compelling re-examination of the conflict ... Kershaw displays here those same qualities of scholarly rigour, careful argument and sound judgement that he brought to bear so successfully in his life of Hitler' Richard Overy 'A splendidly lucid and impeccably argued exposition of the greatest political decisions of the Second World War' Max Hastings 'How fortunate that it is Ian Kershaw bringing his immense knowledge and clarity of thought to the task ... brilliantly explained ... an immensely wise book' Anthony Beevor Ian Kershaw (b. 1943) was Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield from 1989-2008, and is one of the world's leading authorities on Hitler. His books include The 'Hitler Myth', his two volume biography Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris and Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis, and Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-1941. He was knighted in 2002.

The newest immensely original undertaking from the historian who gave us the defining two-volume portrait of Hitler, "Fateful Choices" puts Ian Kershaw's analytical and storytelling gifts on dazzling display. From May 1940 to December 1941, the leaders of the world's six major powers made a series of related decisions that determined the final outcome of World War II and shaped the course of human destiny. As the author examines the connected stories of these profound choices, he restores a sense of drama and contingency to this pivotal moment, producing one of the freshest, most important books on World War II in years?one with powerful contemporary relevance.

'Unquestionably the most authoritative, balanced, readable, and meticulously documented introduction to the Third Reich.' - International History Review Sir Ian Kershaw is regarded by many as the world's leading authority on Hitler and the Third Reich. Known for his clear and accessible style when dealing with complex historical issues his work has redefined the way we look at this period modern European history. The Nazi Dictatorship is Kershaw's landmark study of the Third Reich. It covers the major themes and debates relating to Nazism including the Holocaust, Hitler's authority and leadership, Nazi Foreign Policy and the aftermath, including issues surrounding Germany's unification. The Revelations edition includes a new preface from the author.