A Review of Sir Ian Kershaw's Biography of Hitler

Historians often ask themselves how history might have developed differently without particularly important people like Alexander the Great, Karl Marx, or Constantine. These individuals and people like them have made contributions so vast to the development of the human race that we would live in a different world if they have never been born or had never accomplished the things for which we remember them. Even historians who reject the great man theory of history in favor of one that places more emphasis on long term social and economic trends must admit that history would be vastly different without these key figures. While we do not like to think of Adolf Hitler as a great man his life certainly had a vast influence on the 20th century. Because of the numerous and powerful ways he influenced events before, during, and after the Second World War, one must know something about his life to understand the most destructive war in the history of world. Because the after effects of that war continue to influence our daily lives over sixty years later, knowing something about Hitler can greatly aid our understanding of the present.

Because of his historical significance, Hitler has had no shortage of biographers. In the preface to the first volume of his biography, Sir Ian Kershaw mentions two by Alan Bullock and Joachim Fest. He praises the first as a masterpiece and the second as stylistically brilliant. Perhaps the best biography on Hitler in print, however, is by Kershaw himself. Incorporating new sources available only since the fall of the Soviet Bloc, Kershaw's two volume biography of Hitler is as close to definitive as anything we are likely to see. Kershaw, is know regarded by many as the world's foremost authority on Hitler. He even received a knighthood for his work on the subject.