Europe, 1950-2017

Roller-Coaster

A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 
 
SHORTLISTED FOR THE LIONEL GELBER PRIZE 2020 
 
'Brilliant ... a historical masterpiece' The Times Literary Supplement 
 
From one of Britain's most distinguished historians and the bestselling author of Hitler, this is the definitive history of a divided Europe, from the aftermath of the Second World War to the present. 
 
After the overwhelming horrors of the first half of the 20th century, described by Ian Kershaw in his previous book as having gone 'to Hell and back', the years from 1950 to 2017 brought peace and relative prosperity to most of Europe. Enormous economic improvements transformed the continent. The catastrophic era of the world wars receded into an ever more distant past, though its long shadow continued to shape mentalities. 
 
Europe was now a divided continent, living under the nuclear threat in a period intermittently fraught with anxiety. Europeans experienced a 'roller-coaster ride', both in the sense that they were flung through a series of events which threatened disaster, but also in that they were no longer in charge of their own destinies: for much of the period the USA and USSR effectively reduced Europeans to helpless figures whose fates were dictated to them by the Cold War. There were striking successes - the Soviet bloc melted away, dictatorships vanished and Germany was successfully reunited. But accelerating globalization brought new fragilities. The impact of interlocking crises after 2008 was the clearest warning to Europeans that there was no guarantee of peace and stability. 
 
In this remarkable book, Ian Kershaw has created a grand panorama of the world we live in and where it came from. Drawing on examples from all across the continent, Roller-Coaster will make us all rethink Europe and what it means to be European.

An expert and meticulous look at the events that shaped the continent... it should have a prominent place on the shelf of anybody, professional or layperson, who wants to make sense of present-day Europe

This is a remarkable pan-European survey, and one can only admire the vast range of scholarship lightly worn

A supreme achievement, wearing its immense learning lightly and written with page-turning energy

In synthesizing and evaluating an enormous body of scholarship, not only on Europe, East and West, but also on the wider world and the globalisation processes that have so deeply affected European history, Ian Kershaw has produced a historical masterpiece.

After the overwhelming horrors of the first half of the 20th century, described by Ian Kershaw in his previous book as having gone 'to Hell and back', the years from 1950 to 2017 brought peace and relative prosperity to most of Europe. Enormous economic improvements transformed the continent. The catastrophic era of the world wars receded into an ever more distant past, though its long shadow continued to shape mentalities. 
 
Europe was now a divided continent, living under the nuclear threat in a period intermittently fraught with anxiety. Europeans experienced a 'roller-coaster ride', both in the sense that they were flung through a series of events which threatened disaster, but also in that they were no longer in charge of their own destinies: for much of the period the USA and USSR effectively reduced Europeans to helpless figures whose fates were dictated to them depending on the vagaries of the Cold War. There were, by most definitions, striking successes - the Soviet bloc melted away, dictatorships vanished and Germany was successfully reunited. But accelerating globalization brought new fragilities. The impact of interlocking crises after 2008 was the clearest warning to Europeans that there was no guarantee of peace and stability. 
 
In this remarkable book, Ian Kershaw has created a grand panorama of the world we live in and where it came from. Drawing on examples from all across Europe, Roller-Coaster will make us all rethink Europe and what it means to be European.

Europe, 1914-1949

To Hell and Back

'Superb ... likely to become a classic' Observer 
 
In the summer of 1914 most of Europe plunged into a war so catastrophic that it unhinged the continent's politics and beliefs in a way that took generations to recover from. The disaster terrified its survivors, shocked that a civilization that had blandly assumed itself to be a model for the rest of the world had collapsed into a chaotic savagery beyond any comparison. In 1939 Europeans would initiate a second conflict that managed to be even worse - a war in which the killing of civilians was central and which culminated in the Holocaust. 
 
To Hell and Back tells this story with humanity, flair and originality. Kershaw gives a compelling narrative of events, but he also wrestles with the most difficult issues that the events raise - with what it meant for the Europeans who initiated and lived through such fearful times - and what this means for us.

A great achievement ... There could hardly be a more judicious guide to this bloody terrain ... a stark lesson in man's capacity for evil

A triumph ... one of a tiny handful of historians whose books will still be read in 100 years

Chilling epic-size history ... should be required reading

The story of how the Old World plunged toward hell for 30 years ... There is no man better qualified than Kershaw to take us through the dark valleys of the world wars and the two sombre intervening decades ... fair-minded, deeply researched and highly readable

We are in the hands of a master historian

Few authors would have the ability, and perhaps the determination, to take on the history of both world wars and the connecting decades at this level of sophistication, depth and breadth

Kershaw leads his readers through this complex history in a clear and compelling manner

The Story of Operation Valkyrie

Luck of the Devil

Ian Kershaw is Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield. His books include The 'Hitler Myth', his two volume Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris and Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis, and Fateful Choices. He was knighted in 2002.

'It is now time that something was done. But the man who has the courage to do something must do it in the knowledge that he will go down in German history as a traitor. If he does not, however, he will be a traitor to his own conscience' Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, July 1944 
 
The July 1944 Plot to kill Adolf Hitler was a desperate attempt by a group of senior officers to redeem Germany's honour and end the Second World War. They were heroic because they knew their chances of success were slight and that the result of their failure would undoubtedly be a terrible death. They wanted to leave a message for later generations: that there were Germans who understood the evils of Nazism and were willing to act against it. 
 
This extraordinary story is the basis for Bryan Singer's major new film Valkyrie, due to be released in February 2009. Published for the first time as a separate book, Luck of the Devil is taken from Ian Kershaw's bestselling Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis and is a brilliant account of just what happened in those fateful days at Hitler's Wolf's Lair headquarters, when his opponents came so astonishingly close to assassinating what is one of the modern era's most terrible figures.

Germany, 1944-45

The End

Named Book of the Year by the Sunday Times, TLS, Spectator, Sunday Telegraph, Daily Mail and Scotland on Sunday, Ian Kershaw's The End is a searing account of the final months of Nazi Germany, laying bare the fear and fanaticism that drove a nation to destruction. 
 
In almost every major war there comes a point where defeat looms for one side and its rulers cut a deal with the victors, if only in an attempt to save their own skins. In Hitler's Germany, nothing of this kind happened: in the end the regime had to be stamped out town by town with an almost unprecedented level of brutality. 
 
Just what made Germany keep on fighting? 
Why did its rulers not cut a deal to save their own skins? 
And why did ordinary people continue to obey the Fuhrer's suicidal orders, with countless Germans executing their own countrymen for desertion or defeatism? 
 
'Nuanced and sophisticated ... undoubtedly a masterpiece' - Mail on Sunday 
 
'Gripping yet scholarly ... the best attempt by far to answer the complex question of why Nazi Germany carried on fighting to total self-destruction' - Antony Beevor, Telegraph 
 
'Masterly ... Kershaw's gripping and boldly intelligent work of scholarship ... will surely become the standard account of the Nazi system's terrible final phase' - Financial Times 
 
'Brilliant ... utterly terrifying' - Sunday Times, Books of the Year

A remarkable feat of historical scholarship and intelligent analysis

Gripping yet scholarly ... the best attempt by far to answer the complex question of why Nazi Germany carried on fighting to total self-destruction. Kershaw, the author of the best biography of Hitler, is the finest sort of academic, for he combines impeccable scholarship with an admirable clarity of thought and prose

Masterly ... Kershaw's gripping and boldly intelligent work of scholarship ... will surely become the standard popularly accessible account of the Nazi system's terrible final phase

Brilliant ... nuanced and sophisticated ... undoubtedly a masterpiece

Well-written, penetrating ... and ground-breaking

No one is better qualified to tell this grim story than Kershaw ... A master of both the vast scholarly literature on Nazism and the extraordinary range of its published and unpublished record, Kershaw combines vivid accounts of particular human experiences with wise reflections on big interpretive and moral issues ... No one has written a better account of the human dimensions of Nazi Germany's end

Sober, judicious, clearly written and superbly well researched - a definitive history of the last months of the Third Reich

Kershaw is a sure-footed guide through the Hades of the final dark months of the war in Europe ... his is a thoughtful and thought-provoking account, which admirably combines analysis, historiography and commentary within a very readable narrative

A compelling account of the bloody and deluded last days of the Third Reich ... this is far from being of mere academic interest ... The greatest strength of Kershaw's narrative is that he gives us much more than the view from the top ... Interwoven are insights into German life and death at all levels of society

[Kershaw] understands as well as any man alive the complex power structure that existed in Nazi Germany ... Gripping ... arguably the most convincing portrait of Germany's Götterdämmerung we have seen so far

Britain's most feted and prolific historian of the Third Reich

[Kershaw] is among the foremost western scholars of Nazi Germany. Although this book pursues a narrative of events between June 1944 and May 1945, its real business is to explore the psychology of the German people

An insightful study of how the Führer held his grip over the German people for so long

Comprehensive ... it generates real power

IAN KERSHAW is the author of Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris; Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis; Making Friends with Hitler; and Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-4. Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis received the Wolfson History Prize and the Bruno Kreisky Prize in Austria for Political Book of the Year, and was joint winner of the inaugural British Academy Book Prize. Until his retirement in 2008, Ian Kershaw was Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield. For services to history he was given the German award of the Federal Cross of Merit in 1994. He was knighted in 2002 and awarded the Norton Medlicott Medal by the Historical Association in 2004. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and was the winner of the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding 2012.

SUNDAY TIMES, TLS, SPECTATOR, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, DAILY MAIL and SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY BOOKS OF THE YEAR 
 
In almost every major war there comes a point where defeat looms for one side and its rulers cut a deal with the victors, if only in an attempt to save their own skins. In Hitler's Germany, nothing of this kind happened: in the end the regime had to be stamped out town by town with an almost unprecedented level of brutality. Just what made Germany keep on fighting? 
 
Kershaw's gripping, revelatory book recounts these final months, from the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler in July 1944 to the German surrender in May 1945. 
 
Ian Kershaw is the author of Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris; Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis; Making Friends with Hitler; and Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-4. Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis received the Wolfson History Prize and the Bruno Kreisky Prize in Austria for Political Book of the Year, and was joint winner of the inaugural British Academy Book Prize. Until his retirement in 2008, Ian Kershaw was Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield. For services to history he was given the German award of the Federal Cross of Merit in 1994. He was knighted in 2002 and awarded the Norton Medlicott Medal by the Historical Association in 2004. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and was the winner of the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding 2012.

Hitler's Germany, 1944-45

Kershaw says that his book is not a military history. Nevertheless he offers an admirably clear, coherent discussion of the military situation and insightful portraits of the leading figures in the German armed forces ... The End is sober, judicious, clearly written and superbly well researched - a definitive history of the last months of the Third Reich

Kershaw ... understands as well as any man alive the complex power structure that existed in Nazi Germany ... gripping ... arguably the most convincing portrait of Germany's Götterdämmerung we have seen so far

Author of a magisterial biography of Hitler, [Kershaw] is among the foremost western scholars of Nazi Germany. Although this book pursues a narrative of events between June 1944 and May 1945, its real business is to explore the psychology of the German people

SUNDAY TIMES, TLS, SPECTATOR, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, DAILY MAIL and SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY BOOKS OF THE YEAR 
 
The last months of the Second World War were a nightmarish time to be alive. Unimaginable levels of violence destroyed entire cities. Millions died or were dispossessed. By all kinds of criteria it was the end: the end of the Third Reich and its terrible empire but also, increasingly, it seemed to be the end of European civilization itself. 
 
In his gripping, revelatory new book Ian Kershaw describes these final months, from the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler in July 1944 to the German surrender in May 1945. The major question that Kershaw attempts to answer is: what made Germany keep on fighting? In almost every major war there has come a point where defeat has loomed for one side and its rulers have cut a deal with the victors, if only in an attempt to save their own skins. In Hitler's Germany, nothing of this kind happened: in the end the regime had to be stamped out town by town with a level of brutality almost without precedent. 
 
Both a highly original piece of research and a gripping narrative, The End makes vivid an era which still deeply scars Europe. It raises the most profound questions about the nature of the Second World War, about the Third Reich and about how ordinary people behave in extreme circumstances. 
 
Ian Kershaw is the author of Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris; Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis; Making Friends with Hitler; and Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-4. Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis received the Wolfson History Prize and the Bruno Kreisky Prize in Austria for Political Book of the Year, and was joint winner of the inaugural British Academy Book Prize. Until his retirement in 2008, Ian Kershaw was Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield. For services to history he was given the German award of the Federal Cross of Merit in 1994. He was knighted in 2002 and awarded the Norton Medlicott Medal by the Historical Association in 2004. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and was the winner of the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding 2012.

Hitler

Now available in a single, abridged paperback, Ian Kershaw's Hitler is the definitive biography of the Nazi leader. 
 
 Ian Kershaw's two volume biography, Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris and Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis, was greeted with universal acclaim as the essential work on one of the most malign figures in history, from his earliest origins to the final days of the Second World War. 
 
 Now this landmark historical work is available in one single, abridged edition, tracing the story of how a bitter, failed art student from an obscure corner of Austria rose to unparalleled power, destroying the lives of millions and bringing the world to the brink of Armageddon. 
 
 'Supersedes all previous accounts. It is the sort of masterly biography that only a first-rate historian can write' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;David Cannadine, Observer 
 'The Hitler biography for the twenty-first century' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Richard Evans, Sunday Telegraph 
 'I cannot imagine a better biography of this great tyrant emerging for a long while' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Jeremy Paxman 
 'Magisterial ... anyone who wishes to understand the Third Reich must read Kershaw, for no one has done more to lay bare Hitler's morbid psyche' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Niall Ferguson, Sunday Telegraph 
 'For the present generation, Kershaw's Hitler stands out as a clear beacon of truth, illuminating a dark age of terror and mendacity' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Mail on Sund 
 'An achievement of the very highest order' &amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;Michael Burleigh, Financial Times 
 
 Ian Kershaw (b. 1943) was Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield from 1989-2008, and is one of the world's leading authorities on Hitler. His books include The 'Hitler Myth', his two volume biography Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris and Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis, and Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-1941. He was knighted in 2002.

Supersedes all previous accounts. It is the sort of masterly biography that only a first-rate historian can write

The Hitler biography for the twenty-first century

I cannot imagine a better biography of this great tyrant emerging for a long while

Magisterial ... anyone who wishes to understand the Third Reich must read Kershaw, for no one has done more to lay bare Hitler's morbid psyche

For the present generation, Kershaw's Hitler stands out as a clear beacon of truth, illuminating a dark age of terror and mendacity

Mesmerizing ... presents the twentieth century's most controversial life in a single sweep

IAN KERSHAW is the author of Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris; Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis; Making Friends with Hitler; and Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-4. Hitler 1936-1945: Nemesis received the Wolfson History Prize and the Bruno Kreisky Prize in Austria for Political Book of the Year, and was joint winner of the inaugural British Academy Book Prize. Until his retirement in 2008, Ian Kershaw was Professor of Modern History at the University of Sheffield. For services to history he was given the German award of the Federal Cross of Merit in 1994. He was knighted in 2002 and awarded the Norton Medlicott Medal by the Historical Association in 2004. He is a Fellow of the British Academy.

Now at last in a single, abridged paperback - the definitive life. 
 
Ian Kershaw's two-volume biography of Hitler was greeted with universal acclaim as the essential work on one of the most malign figures in history. Now this landmark biography is available in one single, abridged edition, tracing the story of how a bitter, failed art student from an obscure corner of Austria rose to unparalleled power, destroying the lives of millions and unleashing Armageddon.

Ian Kershaw

Illuminating ... an insightful series of essays about 12 exceptional leaders who stood at the centre of Europe's 20th century.

Few historians are better qualified to answer these questions than Ian Kershaw ... As always, he proves a splendid miniaturist, expertly sketching personalities and philosophies in a few coolly judged lines ... If Kershaw's book has a contemporary lesson, it is that societies are probably happiest and healthiest when leaders matter least.

Sir Ian Kershaw, the great (in both senses) biographer of Adolf Hitler, makes an important contribution to this debate ... persuasive and nuanced pen-portraits ... well-researched, well-written and thought-provoking.

Lucid portraits of the leaders who shaped Europe's 20th century ... There is much to be admired in Kershaw's cogent and astute analysis.

Builders and Destroyers of Modern Europe

The modern era saw the emergence of individuals who had command over a terrifying array of instruments of control, persuasion and death. Whole societies were re-shaped and wars fought, often with a merciless contempt for the most basic norms. At the summit of these societies were leaders whose personalities had somehow given them the ability to do whatever they wished. 
 
Ian Kershaw's new book is a compelling, lucid and challenging attempt to understand these rulers, whether operating on the widest stage (Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini) or with a more national impact (Tito, Franco). What was it about these leaders and the times they lived in that allowed them such untrammelled and murderous power? And what brought that era to an end? In a contrasting group of profiles, from Churchill to de Gaulle, Adenauer to Gorbachev, and Thatcher to Kohl, Kershaw uses his exceptional skills to think through how other, strikingly different figures wielded power.

Ian Kershaw

Praise for Personality and Power

Illuminating ... an insightful series of essays about 12 exceptional leaders who stood at the centre of Europe's 20th century.

Few historians are better qualified to answer these questions than Ian Kershaw ... As always, he proves a splendid miniaturist, expertly sketching personalities and philosophies in a few coolly judged lines ...

Sir Ian Kershaw, the great (in both senses) biographer of Adolf Hitler, makes an important contribution to this debate ... persuasive and nuanced pen-portraits ... well-researched, well-written and thought-provok ...

Illuminating ... an insightful series of essays about 12 exceptional leaders who stood at the centre of Europe's 20th century.

Few historians are better qualified to answer these questions than Ian Kershaw ... As always, he proves a splendid miniaturist, expertly sketching personalities and philosophies in a few coolly judged lines ...

Sir Ian Kershaw, the great (in both senses) biographer of Adolf Hitler, makes an important contribution to this debate ... persuasive and nuanced pen-portraits ... well-researched, well-written and thought-provok ...

Illuminating ... an insightful series of essays about 12 exceptional leaders who stood at the centre of Europe's 20th century.

Few historians are better qualified to answer these questions than Ian Kershaw ... As always, he proves a splendid miniaturist, expertly sketching personalities and philosophies in a few coolly judged lines ...

Sir Ian Kershaw, the great (in both senses) biographer of Adolf Hitler, makes an important contribution to this debate ... persuasive and nuanced pen-portraits ... well-researched, well-written and thought-provok ...

Books by Ian Kershaw

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