Recommendations based on "Shadows in Paradise: A Novel"

Richard Evans' brilliant book unfolds perhaps the single most important story of the 20th century: how a stable and modern country in less than a single lifetime led Europe into moral, physical and cultural ruin and despair. A terrible story not least because there were so many other ways in which Germany's history could have been played out. With authority, skill and compassion, Evans recreates a country torn apart by overwhelming economic, political and social blows: the First World War, Versailles, hyperinflation and the Great Depression. One by one these blows ruined or pushed aside almost everything admirable about Germany, leaving the way clear for a truly horrifying ideology to take command.

AN INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER CHOSEN AS A BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE TIMES * SUNDAY TIMES * TELEGRAPH * SPECTATOR * PROSPECT 'Utterly brilliant . . . Authoritative, lively and profoundly human, it is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand post-World War II Europe' Julia Boyd 'One of the best young historians writing in English today. . . Well-researched, well-written and profoundly insightful, Beyond the Wall explodes many of the lazy Western cliches about East Germany' Andrew Roberts In 1990, a country disappeared. When the iron curtain fell, East Germany simply ceased to be. For over forty years, from the ruin of the Second World War to the cusp of a new millennium, the GDR presented a radically different German identity to anything that had come before, and anything that exists today. Socialist solidarity, secret police, central planning, barbed wire: this was a Germany forged on the fault lines of ideology and geopolitics. In Beyond the Wall, acclaimed historian Katja Hoyer offers a kaleidoscopic new vision of this vanished country. Beginning with the bitter experience of German Marxists exiled by Hitler, she traces the arc of the state they would go on to create, first under the watchful eye of Stalin, and then in an increasingly distinctive German fashion. From the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, to the relative prosperity of the 1970s, and on to the creaking foundations of socialism in the mid-1980s, Hoyer argues that amid oppression and frequent hardship, East Germany was yet home to a rich political, social and cultural landscape, a place far more dynamic than the Cold War caricature often painted in the West. Powerfully told, and drawing on a vast array of never-before-seen interviews, letters and records, this is the definitive history of the other Germany, the one beyond the Wall. LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE BEST BOOKS OF SUMMER 2023: THE TIMES * SUNDAY TIMES * FINANCIAL TIMES * INDEPENDENT * TELEGRAPH * NEW STATESMAN

The New York Times bestselling classic of alternate history, a murder mystery set in a world where the Nazis won World War II—for fans of The Plot Against America and The Man in the High CastleBerlin, 1964. The Greater German Reich stretches from the Rhine to the Urals, and keeps an uneasy peace with its nuclear rival, the United States. As the Fatherland prepares for a grand celebration honoring Adolf Hitler’s seventy-fifth birthday and anticipates a conciliatory visit from U.S. president Joseph Kennedy and ambassador Charles Lindbergh, a detective of the Kriminalpolizei is called out to investigate the discovery of a dead body in a lake near Berlin’s most prestigious suburb.But when Xavier March discovers the identity of the body, he also uncovers signs of a conspiracy that could go to the very top of the German Reich. And, with the Gestapo just one step behind, March, together with the American journalist Charlotte Maguire, is caught up in a race to discover and reveal the truth—a truth that has already killed, a truth that could topple governments, a truth that will change history.Praise for Fatherland“A singular achievement displaying original and carefully wrought suspense . . . Fatherland easily transcends convention.”—The Washington Post“A solid thriller, vividly imagined and genuinely frightening.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution“Ingenious . . . a triumph . . . suspenseful and elegant.”—San Francisco Chronicle“A dazzler . . . fast-paced . . . Historical fact is blended skillfully with fiction.”—Detroit Free Press“Absorbing . . . expertly written.”—The New York Times Book Review“Truly captivating.”—Robert Ludlum“A strong premise for a police thriller with rich foreign atmosphere and political texture galore? Absolutely!”—Entertainment Weekly“A sly and scary page-turner.”—Los Angeles Times“A well-plotted, well-written detective tale and a fascinating trek through parallel history.”—Chicago Tribune“Fatherland works on all levels. It’s a triumph.”—The Washington Times“Distinguished by vivid details based on impeccable research, the thriller is a crackling-good read in the le Carré tradition.”—Time“Wonderful.”—Newsday“A gripping detective story as well as a chilling visit to the Germany that might have been. It is so plausibly written it seems quite real. Robert Harris is a name to watch for.”—BookPage

The New York Times No.1 bestseller delivers ‘a scorching read’ (John Grisham). One of the great unsolved mysteries of World War II is – to some people – a secret worth killing for…The greatest remaining mystery of World War II will be solved…West Berlin, 1987: Spandau Prison is being torn down. Amongst the rubble, the diary of enigmatic Nazi Rudolph Hess is found, and the secrets it reveals plunge the world into chaos.The Spandau Diary- what was in it? Why did the secret intelligence agencies of every major power want it? Why was a brave and beautiful woman kidnapped and assaulted to get to it? And why did a chain of deception and violent death lash out across the globe, from survivors of the Nazi past to warriors in the new conflict now about to explode?

In this magisterial narrative, Zara Steiner traces the twisted road to war that began with Hitler's assumption of power in Germany. Covering a wide geographical canvas, from America to the Far East, Steiner provides an indispensable reassessment of the most disputed events of these tumultuous years. Steiner underlines the far-reaching consequences of the Great Depression, which shifted the initiative in international affairs from those who upheld the status quo to those who were intent on destroying it. In Europe, the l930s were Hitler's years. He moved the major chess pieces on the board, forcing the others to respond. From the start, Steiner argues, he intended war, and he repeatedly gambled on Germany's future to acquire the necessary resources to fulfil his continental ambitions. Only war could have stopped him-an unwelcome message for most of Europe. Misperception, miscomprehension, and misjudgment on the part of the other Great Powers leaders opened the way for Hitler's repeated diplomatic successes. It is ideology that distinguished the Hitler era from previous struggles for the mastery of Europe. Ideological presumptions created false images and raised barriers to understanding that even good intelligence could not penetrate. Only when the leaders of Britain and France realized the scale of Hitler's ambition, and the challenge Germany posed to their Great Power status, did they finally declare war.

"A monumental new volume.... Revelatory, even revolutionary.... Clark has done a masterful job explaining the inexplicable." — Boston GlobeOne of The New York Times Book Review 's 10 Best Books of the Year • Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (History)Historian Christopher Clark's riveting account of the explosive beginnings of World War I.Drawing on new scholarship, Clark offers a fresh look at World War I, focusing not on the battles and atrocities of the war itself, but on the complex events and relationships that led a group of well-meaning leaders into brutal conflict.Clark traces the paths to war in a minute-by-minute, action-packed narrative that cuts between the key decision centers in Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Paris, London, and Belgrade, and examines the decades of history that informed the events of 1914 and details the mutual misunderstandings and unintended signals that drove the crisis forward in a few short weeks.Meticulously researched and masterfully written, The Sleepwalkers is a dramatic and authoritative chronicle of Europe's descent into a war that tore the world apart.

‘Lucid and damning … an absorbing – and infuriating – tale of complicity, coverup and denial’ PATRICK RADDEN KEEFE, author of EMPIRE OF PAINA groundbreaking investigation of how the Nazis helped German tycoons make billions from the horrors of the Third Reich and World War II – and how the world allowed them to get away with it.In 1946, Günther Quandt – patriarch of Germany’s most iconic industrial empire, a dynasty that today controls BMW – was arrested for suspected Nazi collaboration. Quandt claimed that he had been forced to join the party by his arch-rival, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, and the courts acquitted him. But Quandt lied. And his heirs, and those of other Nazi billionaires, have only grown wealthier in the generations since, while their reckoning with this dark past remains incomplete at best. Many of them continue to control swaths of the world economy, owning iconic brands whose products blanket the globe. The brutal legacy of the dynasties that dominated Daimler-Benz, cofounded Allianz and still control Porsche, Volkswagen and BMW has remained hidden in plain sight – until now.In this landmark work, investigative journalist David de Jong reveals the true story of how Germany’s wealthiest business dynasties amassed untold money and power by abetting the atrocities of the Third Reich. Using a wealth of untapped sources, de Jong shows how these tycoons seized Jewish businesses, procured slave labourers and ramped up weapons production to equip Hitler’s army as Europe burnt around them. Most shocking of all, de Jong exposes how the wider world’s political expediency enabled these billionaires to get away with their crimes, covering up a bloodstain that defiles the German and global economy to this day.

Within days of the D-Day lanings, the 'Das Reich' 2nd SS Panzer Division marched north through France to reinforce the front-line defenders of Hitler's Fortress Europe. Veterans of the bloodiest fighting of the Russion Front, 15,000 men with their tanks and artillery, they were hounded for every mile of their march by saboteurs of the Resistance and agents of the Allied Special Forces. Along their route they took reporisals so savage they will live for ever in the chronicles of the most appalling atrocities of war. Max Hasting's powerful account of their progress is a true military classic.

From Library Journal Experienced historian Smith details the personalities and events of the summer of 1939 as the world was drawn into a war that no one but Adolf Hitler wanted. England, Germany, and Russia are the focus; memories of prominent and "ordinary" folk are interwoven to give the feel of the time. Step by painful step, this account moves from the death of Czechoslovakia to the Russo-German pact to the intimidation, then destruction, of Poland. Although Smith adds mothing new, his evocation of the elegiac mood of a doomed society is quite readable. Recommended for most libraries. Pat Ensor, Indiana State Univ. Lib., Terre HauteCopyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

'of The Great Powers That Dominated Europe From The Eighteenth To The Twentieth Centuries, Prussia Is The Only One To Have Vanished ... Iron Kingdom Is Not Just Good: It Is Everything A History Book Ought To Be ... The Nemesis Of Prussia Has Cast Such A Long Shadow That German Historians Have Tiptoed Around The Subject. Thus It Was Left To An Englishman To Write What Is Surely The Best History Of Prussia In Any Language' Sunday Telegraph