Tucson Citizen
“This well-crafted book cuts to the chase and reveals surprising facts about one of the most reviled figures in history
. A fascinating book that underscores the fact that even in a modern era enamored with progress and rationality, the darkest elements of society can sometimes fester and become the most seductive.”
Express (London)
“Wilson has opted for brevity and sharp metal, skewering and brilliantly dissecting Hitler bare in a book you can almost read in a sitting. Wilson cuts to the dark heart of the matter
. A stimulating triumph of the mind.”
The American Prospect
“A.N. Wilson's biography provides a succinct, quick-reading introduction to Hitler that deftly manages the essentials, and, in its truly terrifying accomplishment, begins to bring the human being behind the monstrous Führer back to life.”
Mail on Sunday
“[An] entertaining, short biography
. [Wilson] bring[s] a witty, novelist's insight into what made Hitler tick. He seems to understand Hitler's character in a way many historians never could.”
Providence Journal
“Hitler is a slender but insightful volume about the evil instigator of World War II and the murderer of millions.”
Boston Globe
“Distilling his own career-long study into a tight, rapid-fire volume that is both portrait and warning, Wilson delivers a statement on Hitler that is insightful.”
Wall Street Journal
“Provocative
. Noting how much Hitler depended on his speeches (even ‘Mein Kampf' was dictated), Mr. Wilson calls him the ‘most hypnotic artist of post-literacy.' Like today's radio talk-show ‘entertainers,' Hitler knew there was something about the spoken word that could galvanize millions. Rather than focus on Hitler's ideology, the biographer brilliantly singles out his subject's style of attack.”
Booklist
“[A] sharply focused capsule biography
. A portrait as disturbing as it is succinct.”
Kirkus Reviews
“[Wilson] provides a useful, even entertaining, life of Hitler. He revisits the expected eventshis rise, his incarceration, Mein Kampf, his vicious henchman, his anti-Semitism, his enormous prewar popularity (not just in Germany), his poor military judgment, his women, his fall and deathand adds some nasty details (he couldn't control his farting; he was lazy and dressed oddly).
Is a new Hitler biography necessary? This short volume's "Select Bibliography"—listing 17 earlier biographies—would suggest not. Even the half-awake history student has absorbed at least the outline of this tale: failed art student and layabout becomes the 20th century's "ultimate horror-tyrant," as Wilson puts it. Wilson (Tolstoy: A Biography), a journalist and prolific biographer and novelist, has erected a bare scaffolding of the much-considered life of this "Demon King of history" in order to offer some incisive judgments. For instance, he argues that Hitler and Goebbels each derived from their Catholic upbringing a "system of control" on which the entire Nazi edifice was modeled. Atop this scaffolding sits a provocative final chapter in which Wilson confronts readers with the notion that Hitler might not have been such an utter anomaly. Hitler, Wilson says, "believed himself to be enlightened and forward-looking, non-smoking, vegetarian, opposed to hunting, in favor of abortion and euthanasia." Sound like anyone you know? VERDICT Wilson does not uncover new facts about Hitler's life. He provides instead a brisk overview capped by a "Final Verdict," the title of his unsettling last chapter—one that may raise discussion among its readers.—Sebastian Stockman, Emerson Coll., Boston, MA