Economy

I read this when it first came out and my mother growled the books were bigger than I was. Good thing she didn't look inside, it was horrifying reading for a junior high kid, worse even than books about the bubonic plague if only because it was so recent, my own family had lived through it, watching it all happen step by step.

Reading Shirer's books certainly left me of a deep and abiding mistrust of charm and charisma. Maybe that's why I've lived this long.

If you haven't read these books, do so. The subject matter is difficult but not the prose, you won't have to fight your way through. It came out 63 years ago and is still the definitive work on the Third Reich.