Przemyśl, Poland: A Multiethnic City During and After a Fortress, 1867–1939 examines the economic, political, demographic, and cultural ramifications of Austro-Hungarian military investment in Przemyśl, Poland, from the inception of the fortress in the 1870s, through four months of siege in World War I, to the decades of social change before World War II. The city of Przemyśl lies a few miles west of the Poland–Ukraine border. In the decades before World War I, the Austro-Hungaria...

WINNER OF THE 2016 PEN HESSELL-TILTMAN PRIZEThe Second World War was a German war like no other. The Nazi regime, having started the conflict, turned it into the most horrific war in European history, resorting to genocidal methods well before building the first gas chambers. Over its course, the Third Reich expended and exhausted all its moral and physical reserves, leading to total defeat in 1945. Yet 70 years on – despite whole libraries of books about the war’s...

King of Prussia, German Emperor, war leader and defeated exile, Kaiser Wilhelm II was one of the most important - and most controversial - figures in the history of twentieth-century Europe. But how much power did he really have?The acclaimed historian Christopher Clark follows Kaiser Wilhelm's political career from his youth at the Hohenzollern court through the turbulent decades of the Wilhelmine era into global war and the collapse of Germany in 1918, to his last days. He asks: ...

'Fluently written and convincingly argued, Blood and Iron is a brilliant account of an important period of history, and one that marks the arrival of a major new talent.' - Daily Telegraph'The best biography of the Second Reich in years ... It will undoubtedly become the essential account of this vitally important part of European history.' - Andrew Roberts'Outstanding, authoritative and gripping.'

The award-winning author of Target Switzerland uses "a wide breadth of research to attempt to answer why Switzerland escaped the Nazi onslaught" ( Daly History Blog).While surrounded by the Axis powers in World War II, Switzerland remained democratic and, unlike most of Europe, never succumbed to the siren songs and threats of the Nazi goliath.This book tells the story with emphasis on two voices rarely heard. One voice is that of scores of ...

The final book in his acclaimed trilogy on the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, Richard J. Evans's The Third Reich at War: How the Nazis Led Germany from Conquest to Disaster shows how Germany rushed headlong into destroying itself, shattering an entire continent.In 1939 Hitler mobilized Germany into all-out war. Richard Evans's astonishing, acclaimed history conjures up a whole society plunged into conflict - from generals and front-line soldiers to Hitler ...

In 1945, Germany experienced the greatest outburst of deadly violence that the world has ever seen. Germany 1945 examines the country's emergence from the most terrible catastrophe in modern history. When the Second World War ended, millions had been murdered; survivors had lost their families; cities and towns had been reduced to rubble and were littered with corpses. Yet people lived on, and began rebuilding their lives in the most inauspicious of circumstances.Bombing, military ...

In just four weeks in the summer of 1941 the German Wehrmacht wrought unprecedented destruction on four Soviet armies, conquering central Ukraine and killing or capturing three quarters of a million men. This was the Battle of Kiev - one of the largest and most decisive battles of World War II and, for Hitler and Stalin, a battle of crucial importance. In this 2011 book, David Stahel charts the battle's dramatic course and aftermath, uncovering the irreplaceable losses suffered by Germany'...

Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began the largest and most costly campaign in military history. Its failure was a key turning point of the Second World War. The operation was planned as a Blitzkrieg to win Germany its Lebensraum in the east, and the summer of 1941 is well-known for the German army's unprecedented victories and advances. Yet the German Blitzkrieg depended almost entirely upon the motorised Panzer groups, particularly those of Army Group Centre...

In The German Empire, one of Europe's great historians and men of letters chronicles one of history's most fateful transformations--Germany's rise from new nation to prime mover in the chain of events that sent it hurtling into two world wars.In 1871, Otto von Bismarck fused with "blood and iron" a motley collection of principalities, Free Cities, and bishoprics into one Reich. In England, Benjamin Disraeli observed that the world was witnessing "a greater political event ...

TLS BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2016FINANCIAL TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2015WINNER OF THE PUSHKIN HOUSE RUSSIAN BOOK PRIZE 2016'Magisterial... reveals how much is at stake for world order in Ukraine and Syria.' Rachel Polonsky'As much as anything, World War I turned on the fate of Ukraine'The decision to go to war in 1914 had catastrophic consequences for Russia. The result was...

The first major history of what happened in Germany immediately after the Second World War'Frederick Taylor is one of the brightest historians writing today.' Newsweek'Taylor's book is popular history at its best, essential reading for anyone who is interested in the Nazis and wants to know what happened next.' New StatesmanGermany had entered the twentieth century united, prosperous, and strong, a...