The fiftieth anniversary edition of the National Book Award-winning bestseller that is the definitive study of Adolf Hitler, the rise of Nazi Germany, the Holocaust, and World War II. This special edition now features a new introduction by Ron Rosenbaum, author of Explaining Hitler and How the End Begins. No other powerful empire ever bequeathed such mountains of evidence about its birth and destruction as the Third Reich. When the bitter war was over, and before the Nazis could destroy their files, the Allied demand for unconditional surrender produced an almost hour-by-hour record of the nightmare empire built by Adolph Hitler. This record included the testimony of Nazi leaders and of concentration camp inmates, the diaries of officials, transcripts of secret conferences, army orders, private letters--all the vast paperwork behind Hitler's drive to conquer the world. The famed foreign correspondent and historian William L. Shirer, who had watched and reported on the Nazis since 1925, spent five and a half years sifting through this massive documentation. The result is a monumental study that has been widely acclaimed as the definitive record of one of the most frightening chapters in the history of mankind. Here is the complete story of Hitler's empire, one of the most important stories ever told, written by one of the men best equipped to write it. This worldwide bestseller has been acclaimed as the definitive book on Nazi Germany; it is a classic work.

Hailed as "one of the most important works of history of our time" ( The New York Times ), this definitive chronicle of Hitler's rise to power is back in hardcover with a new introductory essay by Ron Rosenbaum ( Explaining Hitler and How the End Begins ) commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of its National Book Award win.

Since its publication in 1960, William L. Shirer's monumental study of Hitler's Nazi Empire has been a perennial international bestseller. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich offers an unparalleled and thrillingly told examination of how Adolf Hitler nearly succeeded in conquering the world. With millions of copies in print around the globe, this is a vital and enduring classic--a superbly written, unsurpassed record of the last century's darkest hours.

In this startling book, now in paperback, the bestselling author of "Explaining Hitler" warns that a nuclear World War III is not only the most massive and imminent threat to existence as we know it, but also one of the most ignored.
While Russian aggression grows and North Korean nuclear ambitions increase unabated, tensions continue to escalate between India and Pakistan and in the Middle East. Meanwhile, Iran remains committed to developing its nuclear program despite international sanctions.
No other writer has assembled the extraordinary array of sources and experiences that Ron Rosenbaum calls on to inform his examination of nuclear war. While working from both historical and contemporary perspectives to explore the people and events that could shape the form of a third world war, he suggests humans have never before been so close to annihilation. In this book, Rosenbaum examines both the paranoia and very real set of possibilities that informs our view of nuclear war and asks whether we can "undream" the nightmare.

In "Explaining Hitler," Ron Rosenbaum investigates the meanings and motivations people have attached to Hitler and his crimes against humanity. What does Hitler tell us about the nature of evil? In often dramatic encounters, Rosenbaum confronts historians, scholars, filmmakers, and deniers as he skeptically analyzes the key strains of Hitler interpretation.
A balanced and thoughtful overview of a subject both frightening and profound, this is an extraordinary quest, an expedition into the war zone of Hitler theories, "a provocative work of cultural history that is as compelling as it is thoughtful, as readable as it is smart."--"New York Times"
First published in 1998 to rave reviews, "Explaining Hitler" became a ("New York Times")-bestseller. This new edition is an update of that classic and a critically important contribution to the study of the twentieth century's darkest moment.