“The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany”, by William L. Shirer

1245 pages, Simon and Schuster, ISBN-13: 978-0671624200

William L. Shirer's classic The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany is the most complete single volume account of the history of Nazi Germany ever written. Shirer was a journalist, not an historian, and the advantages of this show in his very readable prose and his vivid descriptions (for example, often referring to Herman Goering as "the fat Field Marshall"). The book starts with the birth of the Nazi party and how it found a spokesman early on in an ex-serviceman named Adolf Hitler; the narrative continues through until the end of the war, Hitler's suicide and the final few days under Admiral Doenitz. The only warning to the casual reader is that the book's length exceeds 1200 pages and it is crammed to the brim with facts (also, it should be noted that the book was published over forty years ago and does not include more recent information that has come to light from, for example, the former East German archives). Nevertheless, this is still a classic work of journalistic history.

Shirer's book is abundantly documented, largely thanks to the bonanza of Nazi documents that fell almost untouched into Allied hands at the end of the war. Perhaps it was that mania for organization and precision that contributed to the "Final Solution": first, the determination that the Jews were to be eliminated and then the search for a method to most efficiently bring this about. So from mass shootings in the trenches, they progressed to Auschwitz and the gas chambers and kept searching for ways to improve the rate and efficiency of the carnage right up to the end. What kind of people would participate in something as monstrous as this? Some of the most chilling passages in the book are the descriptions of the defendants' testimony at the Nuremberg trials, as when one officer says without batting an eye that he personally oversaw the deaths of 90,000 people. Even this pales before the descriptions of the medical experiments in the concentration camps, when respected doctors prostituted their science and their souls in some of the most despicable tortures ever perpetrated on human beings, and lost their own humanity in the process.

One of the main strengths of the book, besides the wealth of documentation, is that it was written only 14 years after the end of the war, when many of the main characters were still alive. Shirer gives grudging respect to those Germans such as Halder and Speer who were able to face up to and acknowledge their own guilt and complicity that allowed the unspeakable to become real (one wonders what Heydrich or Von Ribbentrop would have told him had they not been executed, one by Czech partisans and the other by a hangman's noose after the Nuremberg trials). Shirer narrates in detail the failed plot to kill Hitler by his own officers in 1944, the revenge exacted by Hitler and his kangaroo courts, the Allied invasion of Western Europe and the final assault by Russia and the Allied forces that destroyed Nazi Germany, and not a minute too soon. He feels some sympathy for the German people who followed Hitler blindly to their own destruction, like lemmings over a cliff - although I found it difficult to share his feelings, for one reads this awesome book and feels that they brought it on themselves by enthusiastically backing Hitler's rise to power and, in doing so, unleashed a monster.

“Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the War for Crown and Empire”, by James Romm

368 pages, Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN-13: 978-0307271648

James Romm's Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the War for Crown and Empire begins in the last weeks of Alexander's life and follows his would-be successors through several years of bloody in-fighting. Most histories of this period begin and end with Alexander, leaving the chaotic decades following his death either summarized or completely unexplored. It's easy to see why: Alexander was an arresting personality who centered over a decade of politics and conquest on the single focal point of himself, while the generals who fell to squabbling for preeminence after his death were a hodgepodge of individuals of varying quality, and the ever more complex politicking among them makes for a potentially confusing narrative. At Alexander's death he had no heir. He had an illegitimate son, a Bactrian wife in her final trimester of pregnancy and a clique of high-ranking generals of firm loyalty to himself but riven with strife among each other. He gave Perdiccas his signet ring, a clear mark of favored authority, but at his death the rivalries and suspicions among the generals and their distrust of the foreign elements in Alexander's army (the Persian and Indian soldiers and generals, Alexander's Bactrian wife) not to mention decommissioned veterans eager to return home after over a decade at war and rogue local commanders, fell apart without Alexander's powerful center at the top. The empire fractured, fragmented, and finally collapsed into chaos.

James Romm takes this potential chaos of names, motives, loyalties, movements, battles, and betrayals and creates a compelling, highly readable history of the period. His treatment of the subject is really masterful – it's easy to keep track of the scores of individuals populating the story, their relations to each other, and what's going on at any given moment across the vast stage on which the story played out. At various times Romm will deal with Aristotle as he abandons Athens, mutinous Macedonian veterans in what is now Pakistan, Ptolemy in Egypt, and half-dozen generals battling each other in Asia Minor, and, incredibly, it all makes sense. Ghost on the Throne is a masterpiece of organization., but the story is also exciting. Romm does an excellent job of keeping the story moving, a virtue too often lacking in the work of modern historians. He never allows the story to bog down, especially in discussing the conflicting reports of sources. I've read many modern histories that repeatedly lose track of the narrative when discussing sources, but Romm deftly summarizes and evaluates such problems with not a wasted word. Ghost on the Throne moves at a brisk speed that successfully conveys how quickly and catastrophically Alexander's empire collapsed.

I had a few very minor quibbles with the book: I found the system of endnotes difficult to sort through (though Romm gives good reasons for preferring this system in the preface to the book) and there are a few sections that felt needlessly redundant. But those redundant sections were spaced well apart in the book and may be of service to readers who have a difficult time keeping track of all the ancient names and places mentioned in the book. Those readers should be few and far between, but passages like those should help reorient them if they get lost. Finally, I found the epithet "old man Antipater" irritating after a while. But these minor flaws in no way detract from the overall quality of the book. Romm's gifts of organizing a complicated narrative and of making it exciting and readable have allowed him to produce one of the finest, most readable popular histories I've read.

“Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy”, by Ian W. Toll

560 pages, W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN-13: 978-0393058475

Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy by Ian W. Toll is a comprehensive look at the founding of the American Navy from the years shortly after the Revolutionary War. While the young nation had won its independence, the rest of the world still thought of it as a target ripe for exploitation, and the United States soon found its vulnerable merchant fleet being preyed upon, not only by the Great Powers of Europe but even the small, piratical nations of the Barbary Coast. The obvious solution would seem to be the creation of an armed navy, but a surprising revelation of Toll's book is just how much opposition to the idea existed amongst the country's early leadership. Fans of David McCullough's John Adams and 1776 will be pleased by the appearance of figures like Washington, Adams and Jefferson, but here Toll focuses more on their political actions and philosophies than their personalities or character. The arguments over whether creating a navy only served the interests of war profiteers, or whether having one placed too much power in the central government, or might cause the government's bankruptcy, provides a fascinating perspective on the differences between the early Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans.

Grudgingly, and in fits and starts, the federal government allowed for the creation of the book's eponymous six frigates, namely: USS United States, USS Constellation, USS Constitution, USS Chesapeake, USS Congress and USS President. Toll gives credit to Joshua Humphreys, a Quaker who had never before designed a military vessel, for creating a new class of warships that would be more heavily armed than conventional frigates, but lighter and faster than ships of the line, a choice that would prove to be of immense value in later years when the small American fleet found itself in conflict with the supreme might of the British Royal Navy. Initially, however, the U.S. Navy's performance was at best uneven. Toll describes the early U.S. conflicts in the Quasi-War against France and in the wars against Barbary pirates, and his accounts of the various ship battles are the best feature of this work. Those who love Patrick O'Brian will be thrilled by the true life exploits recounted here, and Toll spares none of the details. America's early captains and commodores are presented as the book's most colorful characters - variously incompetent, unlucky, hot-headed, or charismatic - and their victories and defeats alternately were the source of great pride and humiliation for their nation.

With the outbreak of war against Great Britain in 1812, the "little navy" finally came into its own, by defeating the Royal Navy in several ship-to-ship battles, and again Toll's descriptions of the numerous actions are superb. Coming at a time when His Britannic Majesty's ships were thought to be unbeatable (especially by the British) these victories finally proved the worth of maintaining a standing navy to the Jeffersonian Republicans; even more importantly, they played a vital role in forcing the other nations of the world to realize that America was a power that had to be respected. The jacket cover of this book indicates Mr. Toll was a financial analyst by trade. I hope he's given up that mundane calling, and dedicates himself to writing more exciting stories like this one. I very much look forward to his next effort.