Great book, annoying narrator

This is a thorough and well-organized history of post Weimar Republic Germany before the actual outbreak of war. My only gripe would be the narrator, who often pauses mid-sentence (not at a comma) and reminds one of a high school student. He mispronounces even some common words. To top it off, he narrates with a sarcastic tone which makes his mediocre reading ability even more annoying. BTW, you won't notice these things in your "sample listening." It will take you about an hour of listening for him to really begin getting on your nerves.

24 people found this helpful

A great historical work, well-narrated

I am working my way through listening to the whole Evans' trilogy. It is good historical scholarship and a well-written narrative history of the Third Reich. As an audio-book, the narrator is generally pretty good - I have no problems listening to his narration and I have found the first two volumes (yet to listen to the third) excellent.

7 people found this helpful

Good but annoying

I agree with the other reviewer regarding the reader. This book needs a second edition update - not read by Sean Pratt. If you can get past the herky-jerky narration then it's worthwhile but I'm off to my local Library for the other two volumes.

14 people found this helpful

A catalog of horrors

The second book in Richard Evans' trilogy of Nazi Germany.

As if the horrors detailed in the first volume were not enough, Mr Evans details the gradual erosion of the individual rights of all Germans and the complete indifference showed by most to that loss of freedom and especially to the loss of liberty and dignity of the persecuted minorities. An outstanding book that should be read by all.

As with the first volume, my only complaint is the flat and uninspired reading of Sean Pratt. But even that is not enough to cause this wonderful book to lose a star. As after reading the first volume, I will purchase the next as soon as I can gather the courage to listen to another, more brutal, list of horrors.

One can only wonder what those responsible for not stopping the Nazis when they had the power told themselves after the fact. Did Chamberlain ever have to deal with what he helped create? Or Baldwin? Or others in the British and French governments who could have stopped the Nazi horror in its cradle? Did those people who continually ignored Churchill's warnings ever have to face up to what they helped create?

17 people found this helpful

Excellent text in need of better narrator

Evans' trilogy is a significant contribution to what is available in English. Yes, it is quite detailed and specific: obviously some readers do not require so much detail. But that is precisely why I have gotten so much from Evans' work. I've been a student of German history for decades and am always looking to learn something new. The author's knowledge of the German language allows him to delve into primary sources, not just rehash the same old stuff.

Getting through the series was difficult for me, not because of the writing style, but due to the content itself. The events and stories are told in living color. Often they are horrific and heart-breaking, and at times utterly incomprehensible and disturbing. In my opinion, Evans handles the subject matter well, neither holding back nor resorting to hyperbole.

Another difficulty with getting through the series is the narration. I was not thrilled with Sean Pratt's reading of Vol. 1, "The Coming of the Third Reich," and if anything he is even more annoying in this book. I would hope that a reader of a book about Nazi Germany would have at least a basic competence in pronouncing German names. Pratt's bizarre pacing and fingernails-on-a-chalkboard pronunciation are utterly excruciating. I live in hope that eventually a new narrator will do the series, though I doubt it as each book is so long and doubtless expensive to produce.

11 people found this helpful

Gets very bogged down in the details

The first book is worth listening to, especially if you've already read Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." It gives a different view that Shirer's--more detailes in some forms, less detailed in others.

This book ("The Third Reich in Power") is terminally boring, especially in the middle two sections. Listening to hour after hour of the administrative pettiness of the Nazis may be very interesting to a sociologist, but the vast majority of history buffs can probably skip it. The fourth part, getting into the foreign policy during the 30s, finally gets interesting again.


Also, as has been said before, the reader is simply AWFUL. It sounds as if this is the first time he's seen the material, he inserts random pauses, mispronunciations, etc. Just awful.

Still looking forward to the third book.

6 people found this helpful

Leaves me wanting for more

As with the first of this series I found the information to be quite interesting. I have since read Storm of war and No Simple Victory to supplement my knowledge.

2 people found this helpful

How can it happen?

I selected this book because of being curious how the Nazi's gained power and how such insanity took over. I was not disappointed. This is the first of a trilogy about Nazi Germany written by an English history professor. It's fairly new (2004) and examines many aspects of German politics, society, art, education, science leading up to and post World War I. I knew that the WWI defeat of Germany and the subsequent treatment, followed by the Great Depression were part of what enabled Hitler and his Nazi party to take over. However, Evans also covers general apathy, and how nobody thought this uneducated, unrefined man could take over. Also, others simply went along to avoid being beaten and tortured during the oncoming reign of terror. I immediately got the 2nd volume, and I'm sure the 3rd will follow after that. Very textured book - I kept stopping and looking up various people who were described or quoted.

2 people found this helpful

Recommended

This trilogy is long but, the details tell you so much more than the superficial documentaries or pop histories.
Evans doesn’t waste your time with moralizing or foreshadowing. He just lays it out for you to work out for yourself. This is where the depth pays off. You will learn why National Socialism turned Germany into an asylum and the war was lost before it ever began.
I can say I never quite “got it” until this history gave me, finally, enough information to put the puzzle together.

A Good Introduction

Evan's Third Reich Trilogy is essentially a primer for the uninformed, as he himself admits in the prologue to The Coming of the Third Reich. The series is a topical birds-eye view, addressing various aspects of life, politics, and culture under the Third Reich. This is both the book's greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Those interested in narrative history will probably find Evan's approach of jumping from topic to topic frustrating (although the same approach would serve him well in his later survey of 19th-century European history for Penguin). Those that have proceeded beyond the Third Reich trilogy to reading Kershaw, Wachsmann, Longerich, etc. will likewise find the generalizations somewhat frustrating, although this had more to do with the nature of historical surveys than any deliberate mischaracterizations on Evan's part. Simple put, if you want an introduction to life in and under the Third Reich, look no further. If you're already familiar with the topic, you probably won't learn anything new, except perhaps from Evan's fascination with jokes and humour in the Third Reich, which is as insightful as it is delightful.