Recommendations based on "The Second Plane September 11: 2001-2007"

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.

Spanning the years 1940 to 1965, The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm begins shortly after Winston Churchill became prime minister—when Great Britain stood alone against the overwhelming might of Nazi Germany. In brilliant prose and informed by decades of research, William Manchester and Paul Reid recount how Churchill organized his nation’s military response and defense, convinced FDR to support the cause, and personified the “never surrender” ethos that helped win the war. We witness Churchill, driven from office, warning the world of the coming Soviet menace. And after his triumphant return to 10 Downing Street, we follow him as he pursues his final policy goal: a summit with President Dwight Eisenhower and Soviet leaders. And in the end, we experience Churchill’s last years, when he faces the end of his life with the same courage he brought to every battle he ever fought.NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BYThe Wall Street Journal • The Daily Beast • St. Louis Post-Dispatch • The Daytona Beach News-Journal • Kirkus Reviews • Booklist“Majestic . . . This book is superb. It has tremendous pace, rich detail and immense drama.”—The Washington Post“Masterful . . . The collaboration completes the Churchill portrait in a seamless manner, combining the detailed research, sharp analysis and sparkling prose that readers of the first two volumes have come to expect.”—Associated Press“Matches the outstanding quality of biographers such as Robert Caro and Edmund Morris, joining this elite bank of writers who devote their lives to one subject.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Breathtaking . . . brilliant and beautiful, evocative.”—The Boston Globe“A must-read finale for those who loved Manchester’s first two books.”—USA Today“The final volume is . . . majestic and inspiring.”—People“One of the most thorough treatments of Churchill so far produced.”—Library Journal (starred review)

'you Wanted To See Some Action - Well You're Going To Get It Now. You're Going To Get It Now All Right.' Friday 24th May, 1940 Private Johnny Hawke, Aged Sixteen, Awakens To Artillery Fire. Hours Later, Stukas Scream Down From The Sky. Messerschmit Fighters Roar Towards His Regiment. Trucks Burst Into Flames. Now Men And Mules Lay Dead And Dying, Severed Limbs Twisted Grotesquely As Blood Soaks The Cobbled Streets. Young Private Hawke Just Wants To Do His Duty And Serve His Country. But As He - And His Fellow Soldiers - Prepare To Stop The German Advance, There's Only One Question On Everyone's Lips. How Will They Survive?

Winner of the 2016 Mark Lynton History PrizeWinner of the 2015 Wolfson History PrizeA Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2015A Kirkus Reviews Best History Book of 2015Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in the Holocaust categoryThe first comprehensive history of the Nazi concentration campsIn a landmark work of history, Nikolaus Wachsmann offers an unprecedented, integrated account of the Nazi concentration camps from their inception in 1933 through their demise, seventy years ago, in the spring of 1945. The Third Reich has been studied in more depth than virtually any other period in history, and yet until now there has been no history of the camp system that tells the full story of its broad development and the everyday experiences of its inhabitants, both perpetrators and victims, and all those living in what Primo Levi called "the gray zone."In KL, Wachsmann fills this glaring gap in our understanding. He not only synthesizes a new generation of scholarly work, much of it untranslated and unknown outside of Germany, but also presents startling revelations, based on many years of archival research, about the functioning and scope of the camp system. Examining, close up, life and death inside the camps, and adopting a wider lens to show how the camp system was shaped by changing political, legal, social, economic, and military forces, Wachsmann produces a unified picture of the Nazi regime and its camps that we have never seen before.A boldly ambitious work of deep importance, KL is destined to be a classic in the history of the twentieth century.

In Masters of Death, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Rhodes gives full weight, for the first time, to the Einsatzgruppen’s role in the Holocaust. These “special task forces,” organized by Heinrich Himmler to follow the German army as it advanced into eastern Poland and Russia, were the agents of the first phase of the Final Solution. They murdered more than 1.5 million men, women, and children between 1941 and 1943, often by shooting them into killing pits, as at Babi Yar.These massive crimes have been generally overlooked or underestimated by Holocaust historians, who have focused on the gas chambers. In this painstaking account, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes profiles the eastern campaign’s architects as well as its “ordinary” soldiers and policemen, and helps us understand how such men were conditioned to carry out mass murder. Marshaling a vast array of documents and the testimony of perpetrators and survivors, this book is an essential contribution to our understanding of the Holocaust and World War II.

The publication of Victor Klemperer's secret diaries brings to light one of the most extraordinary documents of the Nazi period. "In its cool, lucid style and power of observation," said The New York Times, "it is the best written, most evocative, most observant record of daily life in the Third Reich." I Will Bear Witness is a work of literature as well as a revelation of the day-by-day horror of the Nazi years.A Dresden Jew, a veteran of World War I, a man of letters and historian of great sophistication, Klemperer recognized the danger of Hitler as early as 1933. His diaries, written in secrecy, provide a vivid account of everyday life in Hitler's Germany.What makes this book so remarkable, aside from its literary distinction, is Klemperer's preoccupation with the thoughts and actions of ordinary Germans: Berger the greengrocer, who was given Klemperer's house ("anti-Hitlerist, but of course pleased at the good exchange"), the fishmonger, the baker, the much-visited dentist. All offer their thoughts and theories on the progress of the war: Will England hold out? Who listens to Goebbels? How much longer will it last?This symphony of voices is ordered by the brilliant, grumbling Klemperer, struggling to complete his work on eighteenth-century France while documenting the ever- tightening Nazi grip. He loses first his professorship and then his car, his phone, his house, even his typewriter, and is forced to move into a Jews' House (the last step before the camps), put his cat to death (Jews may not own pets), and suffer countless other indignities.Despite the danger his diaries would pose if discovered, Klemperer sees it as his duty to record events. "I continue to write," he notes in 1941 after a terrifying run-in with the police. "This is my heroics. I want to bear witness, precise witness, until the very end." When a neighbor remarks that, in his isolation, Klemperer will not be able to cover the main events of the war, he writes: "It's not the big things that are important, but the everyday life of tyranny, which may be forgotten. A thousand mosquito bites are worse than a blow on the head. I observe, I note, the mosquito bites."This book covers the years from 1933 to 1941. Volume Two, from 1941 to 1945, will be published in 1999.

At Victoria station the R.T.O. gave me a travel warrant, a white feather and a picture of Hitler marked 'This is your enemy'. I searched every compartment, but he wasn't on the train'. Spike Milligan's on the march, blitzing friend and foe alike with his uproarious recollections of army life from enlistment to the landing at Algiers in 1943. Bathos, pathos and gales of drunken laughter, and insane military goonery explode in superlative Milliganese.

The Sensational International Bestseller On The Overwhelming Role Of Drug-taking In The Third Reich 'the Most Brilliant And Fascinating Book I Have Read In My Entire Life' Dan Snow 'extremely Interesting ... A Serious Piece Of Scholarship, Very Well Researched' Ian Kershaw The Nazis Presented Themselves As Warriors Against Moral Degeneracy. Yet, As Norman Ohler's Gripping Bestseller Reveals, The Entire Third Reich Was Permeated With Drugs: Cocaine, Heroin, Morphine And, Most Of All, Methamphetamines, Or Crystal Meth, Used By Everyone From Factory Workers To Housewives, And Crucial To Troops' Resilience - Even Partly Explaining German Victory In 1940. The Promiscuous Use Of Drugs At The Very Highest Levels Also Impaired And Confused Decision-making, With Hitler And His Entourage Taking Refuge In Potentially Lethal Cocktails Of Stimulants Administered By The Physician Dr Morell As The War Turned Against Germany. While Drugs Cannot On Their Own Explain The Events Of The Second World War Or Its Outcome, Ohler Shows, They Change Our Understanding Of It. Blitzed Forms A Crucial Missing Piece Of The Story.

'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