The Roman Empire has been a source of inspiration and a model for imitation for Western empires practically since the moment Rome fell. Yet, as Julia Hell shows in The Conquest of Ruins, what has had the strongest grip on aspiring imperial imaginations isn’t that empire’s glory but its fall—and the haunting monuments left in its wake. Hell examines centuries of European empire-building—from Charles V in the sixteenth century and Napoleon’s campaigns of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries to the atrocities of Mussolini and the Third Reich in the 1930s and ’40s—and sees a similar fascination with recreating the Roman past in the contemporary image. In every case—particularly that of the Nazi regime—the ruins of Rome seem to represent a mystery to be solved: how could an empire so powerful be brought so low? Hell argues that this fascination with the ruins of greatness expresses a need on the part of would-be conquerors to find something to ward off a similar demise for their particular empire.

The defeat of Nazi Germany in the words of those who were there New Year's Day 1945 was not a day for rest or rejoicing on the embattled continent of Europe. Hard winter gripped the land, from the Channel coast to the distant Urals. Only the thought of victory warmed the frozen soldiers huddled in tanks and foxholes as the New Year dawned and they faced the prospect of battling onwards toward Berlin. This is the story of the last five months of Hitler's Thousand Year Reich, from New Year's Day to VE Day, May 8, 1945. It is a story told not in the words of historians or scholars, but in the words of the people who lived through it, who fought and endured: soldier and civilian, American infantryman and British paratrooper, Canadian gunner and Australian pilot, New Zealand POW and German civilian. With his unrivaled gift for popular history, Robin Neillands, in his follow-up to the enormously successful D-Day 1944, recreates in engaging narrative fashion the most dramatic and bloody months of the war. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, letters, and inside eyewitness testimony from veterans about such subjects as the esprit de corps in the Allied and Axis armies, the discovery of the concentration camps, the dissension in the Allied command, and the meeting of Russians and Americans at the Elbe, the book recounts the effects of many of the most crucial events of the conflict on soldier and citizen alike. The Battle of the Bulge, the liberation of Auschwitz, the Malmedy Massacres, the fall of Warsaw to the Red Army, the destruction of Dresden, the lynching of Allied aircrews, Yalta, Hitler's Scorched Earth directive, the massive parachutes drops by the Allied forces, the death of Roosevelt, the last days of Hitler, and, finally, the surrender of Germany—it's all here, rendered in engrossing and rich detail in this example of military history at its finest. For a comprehensive and thrilling account of the end of World War II, The Conquest of the Reich will stand as the definitive people's history for years to come.

Ernest R. May's Strange Victory presents a dramatic narrative-and reinterpretation-of Germany's six-week campaign that swept the Wehrmacht to Paris in spring 1940. Before the Nazis killed him for his work in the French Resistance, the great historian Marc Bloch wrote a famous short book, Strange Defeat, about the treatment of his nation at the hands of an enemy the French had believed they could easily dispose of. In Strange Victory, the distinguished American historian Ernest R. May asks the opposite question: How was it that Hitler and his generals managed this swift conquest, considering that France and its allies were superior in every measurable dimension and considering the Germans' own skepticism about their chances? Strange Victory is a riveting narrative of those six crucial weeks in the spring of 1940, weaving together the decisions made by the high commands with the welter of confused responses from exhausted and ill-informed, or ill-advised, officers in the field. Why did Hitler want to turn against France at just this moment, and why were his poor judgment and inadequate intelligence about the Allies nonetheless correct? Why didn't France take the offensive when it might have led to victory? What explains France's failure to detect and respond to Germany's attack plan? It is May's contention that in the future, nations might suffer strange defeats of their own if they do not learn from their predecessors' mistakes in judgment.

The final book in his acclaimed trilogy on the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, Richard J. Evans's The Third Reich at War: How the Nazis Led Germany from Conquest to Disaster shows how Germany rushed headlong into destroying itself, shattering an entire continent. In 1939 Hitler mobilized Germany into all-out war. Richard Evans's astonishing, acclaimed history conjures up a whole society plunged into conflict - from generals and front-line soldiers to Hitler Youth activists and middle-class housewives - tracing events from the invasion of Poland and the Battle of Stalingrad to Hitler's plans for genocide and his eventual suicide. 'Masterly ... will surely be the standard history for many years to come ... This is a warning for the future, as much as a judgement on the past' ;Richard Overy, Daily Telegraph 'We all know how the story ends ... but Richard Evans brings it masterfully home ... magnificent';Peter Preston, Observer 'A chilling, brilliant read' Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year 'It is hard to do justice to the humanity and scholarly range of The Third Reich at War ... triumphant ... a masterful historical narrative and the most comprehensive account of Nazi Germany' Nicholas Stargardt, The Times Literary Supplement 'It gives the reader persuasive answers to questions asked for so long, that will continue to be asked, about this most violent and inexplicable of regimes' Mark Mazower, Guardian Sir Richard J. Evans is Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University. His previous books include In Defence of History, Telling Lies about Hitler and the companions to this title, The Coming of the Third Reich and The Third Reich in Power.

History of Nazi Germany.

Traces the five-hundred year history and wide-ranging influence of the Roman historian's unflattering book about the ancient Germans that was eventually extolled by the Nazis as a bible.

“This thoroughly researched and superbly written study” examines the final days of WWII combat within Germany during the occupation of Franconia (WWII History). At the end of World War II, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower turned US forces toward the Franconian region of Germany, ordering them to cut off and destroy German units before they could escape into the Alps. Opposing this advance were German forces headed by SS-Gruppenführer Max Simon, a committed National Socialist who advocated merciless resistance. Caught in the middle were the people of Franconia. Historians have largely overlooked this period of violence and terror, but it provides insight into the chaotic nature of life while the Nazi regime was crumbling. Neither German civilians nor foreign refugees acted simply as passive victims caught between two fronts. Throughout the region people pressured local authorities to end the senseless resistance. Others sought revenge for their tribulations in the “liberation” that followed. Stephen G. Fritz examines the predicament and perspective of American GI's, German soldiers and officials, and the civilian population. Endkampf is a gripping portrait of the collapse of a society and how it affected those involved, whether they were soldiers or civilians, victors or vanquished, perpetrators or victims.