An engrossing account of the city where Nazism took root, the place that put Hitler on the road to power.

The capital of the Nazi movement was not Berlin but Munich. So said the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, of this handsome Bavarian town on the banks of the Isar River. Why did Nazism flourish in the "Athens of the Isar"?

In exploring this question David Clay Large begins in Munich's "golden age," the four decades before World War I when its culture generated some of the outstanding works of the modernist spirit. But here he finds a dark side, a proto-fascist cultural heritage that proved fertile soil for Hitler's movement. From the violent experience of the Munich Soviet in 1918-19 through Hitler's failed Beer-Hall Putsch of 1923 and on to his appointment as German chancellor in 1933, Large weaves a harrowing narrative of the rise of Nazism. As he did in his previous book, Between Two Fires: Europe's Path in the 1930s (Norton), Large succeeds here in "putting the story back into history for these dreadful years" (Choice).

"David Clay Large knows how to write. . . . He has a sense of drama equal to that of another popular historian, William Manchester."—Frank J. Prial, New York Times Book Review

The torch relay that staple of Olympic pageantry first opened the summer games in 1936 in Berlin. Proposed by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, the relay was to carry the symbolism of a new Germany across its route through southeastern and central Europe. Soon after the Wehrmacht would march in jackboots over the same terrain. The Olympic festival was a crucial part of the Nazi regime's mobilization of power. Nazi Games offers a superb blend of history and sport. The narrative includes a stirring account of the international effort to boycott the games, derailed finally by the American Olympic Committee and the determination of its head, Avery Brundage, to participate. Nazi Games also recounts the dazzling athletic feats of these Olympics, including Jesse Owens's four gold-medal performances and the marathon victory of Korean runner Kitei Son, the Rising Sun of imperial Japan on his bib."

Contending with Hitler is a distillation of recent scholarship on Germany's domestic resistance to the Nazi dictatorship. Consisting of twelve original essays, it sets forth the issues that specialists and laymen alike must keep in mind as they try to understand the nature and significance of this complex problem. Unlike most histories of the German resistance, this volume does not restrict its focus to well-known opposition factions such as the Kreisau Circle and the Twentieth of July conspiracy; rather, it includes investigations of resistance efforts by Jews, women, workers, and young people. The Socialist opposition is illuminated by the personal observations of former West German chancellor, Willy Brandt.

The Grand Spas of Central Europe leads readers on an irresistible tour through the grand spa towns of Central Europe-fabled places like Baden-Baden, Bad Ems, Bad Gastein, Karlsbad, and Marienbad. Noted historian David Clay Large follows the grand spa story from Greco-Roman antiquity to the present, focusing especially on the years between the French Revolution and World War II, a period in which the major Central European Kurorte ("cure-towns") reached their peak of influence and then slipped into decline. Written with verve and affection, the book explores the grand spa towns, which in their prime were an equivalent of today's major medical centers, rehab retreats, golf resorts, conference complexes, fashion shows, music festivals, and sexual hideaways-all rolled into one. Conventional medicine being quite primitive through most of this era, people went to the spas in hopes of curing everything from cancer to gout. But often as not "curists" also went to play, to be entertained, and to socialize. In their heyday the grand spas were hotbeds of cultural creativity, true meccas of the arts. High-level politics was another grand spa specialty, with statesmen descending on the Kurorte to negotiate treaties, craft alliances, and plan wars. This military scheming was just one aspect of a darker side to the grand spa story, one rife with nationalistic rivalries, ethnic hatred, and racial prejudice. The grand spas, it turns out, were microcosms of changing sociopolitical realities-not at all the "timeless" oases of harmony they often claimed to be. The Grand Spas of Central Europe holds up a gilt-framed but clear-eyed mirror to the ever-changing face of European society-dimples, warts, and all.

"An evocative re-creation of the European political climate of the 1930s . . . Large does a fine job of connecting these events." —Kirkus Reviews

Auden called it the "low dishonest decade"; it was a "no man's land . . . between two fires," and in this book 1930s Europe comes to life in all its fear, corruption, violence, and trampled ideals. Vivid narrative portraits of events in France, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union combine to show Europe on the path to war.

These fateful events range from the "Sasha" Stavisky scandal, which fragmented French society, to Austria's bloody civil war, which paved the way for the German Anschluss, as well as the "night of the long knives," the vicious purge of rebellious SA brownshirts by Hitler's SS. David Clay Large also depicts Mussolini's brutal invasion of Ethiopia, the destruction of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, and Stalin's assault on truth through the show trials of his Great Purge. Finally, in Munich, the book's characters and themes come together on the threshold of World War II.

The torch relay—that staple of Olympic pageantry—first opened the summer games in 1936 in Berlin. Proposed by the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, the relay was to carry the symbolism of a new Germany across its route through southeastern and central Europe. Soon after the Wehrmacht would march in jackboots over the same terrain. The Olympic festival was a crucial part of the Nazi regime's mobilization of power. Nazi Games offers a superb blend of history and sport. The narrative includes a stirring account of the international effort to boycott the games, derailed finally by the American Olympic Committee and the determination of its head, Avery Brundage, to participate. Nazi Games also recounts the dazzling athletic feats of these Olympics, including Jesse Owens's four gold-medal performances and the marathon victory of Korean runner Kitei Son, the Rising Sun of imperial Japan on his bib.

In Germans to the Front , David Large charts the path from Germany's total demilitarization immediately after World War II to the appearance of the Bundeswehr, the West German army, in 1956. The book is the first comprehensive study in English of West German rearmament during this critical period. Large's analysis of the complex interplay between the diplomatic and domestic facets of the rearmament debate illuminates key elements in the development of the Cold War and in Germany's ongoing difficulty in formulating a role for itself on the international scene. Rearmament severely tested West Germany's new parliamentary institutions, dramatically defined emerging power relationships in German politics, and posed a crucial challenge for the NATO alliance. Although the establishment of the Bundeswehr ultimately helped stabilize the nation, the acrimony surrounding its formation generated deep divisions in German society that persisted long after the army took the field. According to Large, the conflict was so bitter because rearmament forced a confrontation with fundamental questions of national identity and demanded a painful reckoning with the past. |Regarded as the primary textbook and sourcebook for the teaching and practice of local journalism and newspaper publishing in the U.S., this book addresses the issues a small-town newspaper writer or publisher is likely to face, from why community journalism is important and distinctive; to hints for reporting, news writing, and feature writing with a ""community spin""; to handling design, production, photojournalism, and staff management. This edition includes a new ""Best Practices"" chapter for community newspapers.