The Hitler Years ~ Triumph 1933 - 1939

'This first volume of McDonough's mega two-volume history is aptly subtitled, 'Triumph', for that is what it is. Everybody even remotely interested in Nazi Germany should have an empty space on their bookshelf, waiting to be filled by volume 2. McDonough's prose matches the rigour of Kershaw, the wit of Evans and the fluency of Shirer. But he brings a new and distinctive clarity to this subject which is all too often lost in the thematic or obscured by the overly academic' Luke Daly-Groves. 'The book unfolds like a thrilling Scorsese-directed gangster movie ... McDonough treats his readers to all the fascinating insights one would expect from a rich career of study as he dedicates an entire chapter to each year of Adolf Hitler's evil rule in the 1930s' History of War Magazine. 'A masterclass in the history of Nazi Germany, with an internationally renowned expert as the teacher' Get History. 'Triumph is the more interesting for pushing back against the cartoon of Hitler as all-conquering monster-supermensch. Instead it demonstrates the slow creep of the Nazi state takeover, the caution with which Hitler had to move, the resistance that he often faced and his surprising, instinctive flexibility' Oldie. 'What makes this volume really stand out is its stylish design and more than 80 coloured photographs, punctuating the account of Hitler's slow but inevitable march to war' Military History. 'One of the books of the year!' Dan Snow. 'A lucid and linear story' Irish Independent. 'McDonough points to the starker reality. In Nazi Germany, citizens worked more hours for less pay. Nor was there any great altering of class consciousness or redistribution of wealth as there had been in, say, the Soviet Union. The other central claim this excellent book makes is that Hitler's road to power was one where flexibility co-existed in tandem with shifting political events in real time. The historian insists that Nazi Germany was not a totalitarian society in the way that Stalinist Russia was. Hitler's appointment as Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, after all, was both legal and constitutional. There was no violent revolution as there had been in Russia in 1917 or France in 1789' Irish Independent.