The prize-winning bestselling historian delivers the first authoritative general account for thirty years.
Laurence Rees is the author of the award-winning Auschwitz- The
Nazis and the 'Final Solution' - the world's bestselling book on
the history of the camp.
A former Head of BBC TV History programmes, he has written six
books on the Nazis and the Second World War, as well as writing and
producing the accompanying documentary TV series. His work includes
the TV series and books The Nazis- A Warning from History,
Auschwitz- The Nazis and the 'Final Solution', World War II- Behind
Closed Doors and The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler.
Laurence Rees was educated at Solihull School and Oxford University
and holds honorary doctorates from the University of Sheffield and
the Open University. For several years he was a visiting senior
fellow in the International History Department at the London School
of Economics and Political Science, London University. His many
awards include a British Book Award, a BAFTA, a George Foster
Peabody award, a Broadcasting Press Guild award, a Grierson award,
a Broadcast award, two International Documentary awards and two
Emmys.
Anyone wanting a compelling, highly readable explanation of how and
why the Holocaust happened, drawing on recent scholarship and
impressively incorporating moving and harrowing interviews need
look no further than Laurence Rees's brilliant book
*Professor Ian Kershaw*
A masterpiece. Laurence Rees's best book yet . . . In compelling
prose, Rees tells the full story of the most shameful period in the
story of Mankind
*Andrew Roberts*
You might have thought that we know everything there is to know
about the Holocaust but this book proves there is much more...
*Daily Mail*
With The Holocaust he has set himself the task of writing an
accessible chronological account of the murder of six million Jews
in conditions of scarcely imaginable horror. He's done it
excellently. There is no shortage of books on the Holocaust but
Rees's stands out as a readable and authoritative exposition of how
and why it happened, and the barbarous methods by which it was
pursued. The amount of ground it covers in 500 pages is remarkable
- from the anti-Semitism of popular German literature of the 19th
century to Hitler's suicide and the surrender of his regime. It's
excellently written and skilfully interweaves narrative history,
sound interpretation and the recollections (through interviews,
listed in the notes as "previously unpublished testimony") of
survivors. Rees provides an exemplary account of how the greatest
crime in modern history came about.
*The Times*
Rees has distilled 25 years of research into this compelling study,
the finest single-volume account of the Holocaust. It is not a book
for the faint-hearted. Some of the first-hand testimony is both
shocking and heart-rending. Yet it has important things to say
about human nature - what our species is capable of doing if not
prevented by civilized laws - and demands to be read
*Telegraph*
This is by far the clearest book ever written about the Holocaust,
but also the best in explaining both its origins and grotesque
mentality, as well as its chaotic development
*Antony Beevor*
A fine book. Rees is a gifted educator, who can tell a complex
story with compassion and clarity, without sacrificing all
nuances...it comes alive through the voices of victims, killers and
bystanders.
*Guardian*
The interview material is largely compelling, always illuminating
and on occasion, very moving . . . Like all of Rees's work, it is
accurate and carefully researched
*New Statesman*
Absorbing, heart-breaking...he has drawn skilfully on speeches,
documents and diaries of the Third Reich, and on the vast library
of secondary literature, to weave together a powerful, inevitably
harrowing revelation of the 20th century's greatest crime
*Sunday Times*
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