J. P. Stern

#2

1973

This book is a major new biography -- an extraordinary, penetrating study of the man who has become the personification of evil. For all the literature about Adolf Hitler there have been just four seminal biographies; this is the fifth, a landmark work that sheds important new light on Hitler himself. Drawing on previously unseen papers and a wealth of recent scholarly research, Volker Ullrich reveals the man behind the public persona, from Hitler’s childhood to his failures as a young man in Vienna to his experiences during the First World War to his rise as a far-right party leader. Ullrich deftly captures Hitler’s intelligence, instinctive grasp of politics, and gift for oratory as well as his megalomania, deep insecurity, and repulsive worldview. Many previous biographies have focused on the larger social conditions that explain the rise of the Third Reich. Ullrich gives us a comprehensive portrait of a postwar Germany humiliated by defeat, wracked by political crisis, and starved by an economic depression, but his real gift is to show vividly how Hitler used his ruthlessness and political talent to shape the Nazi party and lead it to power. For decades the world has tried to grasp how Hitler was possible. By focusing on the man at the center of it all, on how he experienced his world, formed his political beliefs, and wielded power, this riveting biography brings us closer than ever to the answer. - Publisher.

#3

"In his Blistering Prose, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) uprooted the traditional study of philosophy as firmly grounded in rationality and truth and lay the foundations for the radicalism of twentieth-century Western thought, as it would emerge after his death. Contemporary thinkers have reinterpreted, revised, and repeated Nietzsche's ideas, but no one has transcended them, and today, no student of philosophy can afford to ignore the life and work of this towering figure. In his seminal work, acclaimed biographer Rudiger Safranski integrates philosophical analysis with biographical detail to portray this difficult, often contradictory man with an objective, even-handed grace." "Following Nietzsche's own dictum that "life is a testing ground for thought," Safranski, the author of biographies of Heidegger and Schopenhauer, offers a critical reappraisal of Nietzsche's philosophy by examining the intersection of his life and work, attempting what Nietzsche considered the most important of human tasks: to be "an adventurer, a circumnavigator of the inner world called human.""--BOOK JACKET