Hitler Ascent 1889-1939 [Paperback]

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography

ANew York Timesbestseller, this major new biography of Hitler puts an emphasis on the man himself: his personality, his temperament, and his beliefs.

Volker Ullrich'sHitler, the first in a two-volume biography, has changed the way scholars and laypeople alike understand the man who has become the personification of evil. Drawing on previously unseen papers and new scholarly research, Ullrich charts Hitler's life from his childhood through his experiences in the First World War and his subsequent rise as a far-right leader. Focusing on the personality behind the policies, Ullrich creates a vivid portrait of a man and his megalomania, political skill, and horrifying worldview. Hitler is a landmark biography with unsettling resonance in these times.“A wonderful array of well-chosen anecdotes…Mr. Ullrich is a journalist rather than an academic, which partly explains one of the book’s many positive features — its remarkable fluency and readability…[F]or an entirely sound, interesting and even entertaining account, Mr. Ullrich’s study can be thoroughly recommended as a most worthwhile addition to the voluminous literature on the man.”
—Neil Gregor,The Wall Street Journal

“The author deals with the usual turns, such as Hitler’s rough years as an aspiring artist and the horrors of trench warfare in World War I, but he adds welcome observations and interesting asides along the way…Timely, given the increase in right-wing intransigence throughout the world, and one of the best works on Hitler and the origins of the Third Reich to appear in recent years.”
—Kirkus

“[A] fascinating Shakespearean parable about how the confluence of circumstance, chance, a ruthless individual and the willful blindness of others can transform a country — and, in Hitler&rsl£¨