Brendan Simms is a professor in the History of International Relations and fellow at Peterhouse College, Cambridge. He is the author of eight previous books, including The Longest Afternoon: The 400 Men Who Decided the Battle of Waterloo and Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, from 1453 to the Present, shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize. He lives in Cambridge, UK.
"Brendan Simms has a bold hypothesis -- that it was Hitler's
fixation on the United States and Great Britain, and his fear of
German decay and degeneracy that drove his strategic thinking and
behavior, and he argues it with exceptional eloquence and force.
This fascinating book will force us to rethink the strategy of the
Second World War in a way that none other has in more than a
generation."--Eliot Cohen, Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic
Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns
Hopkins University
"A pathbreaking and elegantly written account of Hitler and his
foreign policy that is rooted in the existing literature but goes
beyond it to make new claims. Simms marshals considerable evidence
to show that Hitler was more preoccupied with a worldwide struggle
with America and Britain then he was by Jews and Bolshevism. His
claims of Aryan racial superiority masked concerns about German
inferiority; he hoped to improve the 'racial stock' by positive as
well as negative eugenics. Simms rejects revisionist claims that
see Hitler's foreign policy as constrained or compelled by German
society and institutions. A must read for anyone interested in the
Third Reich and the long shadow it cast over the 20th
century."--Richard Ned Lebow, professor of War Studies, King's
College London
"After more than 100,000 publications on the evil of Adolf Hitler
and the Nazi responsibility for Second World War, it is difficult
to offer much new. But Brendan Simms has written a provocatively
novel interpretation of the ascendance of Hitler, and why he
prompted and lost a global war: his Hitler was always driven more
by envy and fear of Anglo-American capitalists than fright of the
Soviet Bolsheviks-and more from worries about the comparative
inferiority of the German Volk than from arrogance about its
purported superiority. Enthralling and enlightening revisionist
history at its best."--Victor Davis Hanson, author of The Second
World Wars
"Combining intellectual verve with gravity, this analytical
biography's tightly integrated arguments are based on prodigious
research and original conceptualizations. Often gripping, the
book's fresh thinking concerning Hitler's anxieties about
Anglo-America and the qualities of Germany's population directs
readers to reconsider established perceptions about his intentions,
motivations, and behavior."--Ira Katznelson, author of Fear Itself:
The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time
"[Simms] builds on previous scholarship to make a bold thesis-that
Hitler's principal obsession was not communism but rather
'Anglo-America' and global capitalism...A vigorous, original study
that adds to the ongoing scholarship."--Kirkus
"[Hitler] challenges some of our longstanding ideas about the
man who ruled Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945...Highly
provocative."--Financial Times
"A radically new assessment of the Fuhrer's world view and the
motivation for his plunging the world into a terminal struggle for
survival."--Daily Mail
"Simms...challeng[es] much recent scholarship...A preoccupation
with Anglo-American capitalism, he contends, drove the Third
Reich's ideology in its formative years, more than the oft-cited
obsession with Bolshevism...He has made sound use of the Bavarian
archives."--Observer
"If many Hitler books are scarcely worth reading, this one commands
attention through its originality and sheer intelligence...A
thoroughly thought-provoking, stimulating biography which all
historians of the Third Reich will have to take seriously."--Irish
Times
"Impressive and intriguing...By drawing our attention to the
centrality of historical emigration to Hitler's racial vision of a
Great Germany, Simms adds a new dimension to our understanding of
the thinking that drove history's most notorious figure. Crisply
written and well-researched, there is much in this book that
enlightens and stimulates."--The Interpreter
"Simms argues forcefully that [Hitler's] primary motivation was a
fear that Germany would be crushed by the Anglo-Saxon capitalism
epitomised by the US and the British Empire."--History Today
"A powerful new biography."--Timothy Snyder, New York
Times
"This vivid and painstakingly researched volume revises
fundamentally how historians ought to view the geopolitical
motivations of the Nazi leader. Simms argues that Hitler did not
see the Soviet Union as the primary obstacle to his expansionist
ambitions. From the start, his real enemies were the United Kingdom
and the United States.... Engaging and essential reading for anyone
interested in Hitler's policymaking."--Foreign Affairs
"Fascinating...[Simms] believes that, despite the attention Hitler
has received, there is an unknown Hitler that other biographers and
historians have missed-the Hitler who spent his political career
grappling with the emergence of America as the dominant power of
the 20th century. After reading Hitler: A Global Biography,
one has to agree. A thought-provoking guide to seeing what happens
when dictators read America wrong."--Arthur Herman, Wall Street
Journal
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