The Coming of the Third Reich

By: Richard J. Evans

Narrated by: Sean Pratt

Length: 21 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

There is no story in 20th-century history more important to understand than Hitler’s rise to power and the collapse of civilization in Nazi Germany. With The Coming of the Third Reich, Richard Evans, one of the world’s most distinguished historians, has written the definitive account for our time. A masterful synthesis of a vast body of scholarly work integrated with important new research and interpretations, Evans’s history restores drama and contingency to the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis, even as it shows how ready Germany was by the early 1930s for such a takeover to occur. The Coming of the Third Reich is a masterwork of the historian’s art and the book by which all others on the subject will be judged.

©2005 Richard J. Evans (P)2010 Gildan Media Corp

Critic reviews

"[A]n impressive achievement.... [Evans'] opus will be one of the major historical works of our time." ( The Atlantic)

Pratt's Narration ruins an excellent work

Pratt's narration is abysmal. His pacing is odd. He makes pitching choices (adding or not adding emphasis thorugh vocal pitch) that are simply wrong, constantly mis-cuing the listener. But, worst of all, he constantly adds incongruous pauses throughout the narration, often coming to a full stop in the middle of a sentence. He pauses luxuriously before every "and" or "that" and, most annoyingly, for no understandable reason at random positions in every third or fourth sentence. The listener is put in the position of trying to reconstruct the pacing and meaning of the previous sentence while trying to listen to the next. I found myself so annoyed and distracted by the narration at times that I completely lost track of Richard Evan's content.

Pratt also mis-pronounces common German words, like "volk", which is unforgiveable in a book discussing the history of the Third Reich. (This is the kind of thing the producer of the audiobook should have corrected.)

I've just finished listening to the preface and first two chapters and am seriously considering stopping at this point and moving on to another title. The content, which, from what I can tell, is very well-researched and well-written, is entirely and sadly eclipsed by an incompetent narrator.

Well documented, thorough and well narrated

This audiobook is remarkably interesting, very complete and detailed, provides a convincing explanation of how the 3rd Reich came to power and does so with a fresh perspective. It does not fall in the "Hitler is crazy and the Germans are too" pitfall: instead, it gives a human understanding of this process.

The narration is also flawless. This is an excellent buy.

Enjoyed the book, not the narrator.

"Stuffy" narrator , thorough account. With a different narrator the story would have been fascinating but as it is one's mind tends to wander from the account at times.

Should be required reading

I'd read this trilogy several years ago and wanted to re-read but I struggle with finding the time to sit down and read something. I remembered how much detail was packed into it and was a bit worried that might be tough from an audiobook but it was just fine.

This trilogy is, in my opinion, the best understanding of what it attempts to discuss- the rise and the fall of the Nazis. I didn't expect the first book to be that interesting, but in fact I think it's the most interesting. Evans does a thorough job at explaining a lot of cultural attitudes and different authors and perspectives that were around at the time. I think it's a good balance against the Great Man theory that Hitler came out of a vacuum fully formed and that all his ideas were his own. Instead you learn how he was culturally influenced and how certain elements of society were almost primed for a movement like the Nazi party.

I think this series will get most often compared to Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. The narrator for Shirer's book is amazing so I think people are quick to have problems with this one, but I did not have any issues. I never felt distracted by his narration or noticed any major errors or issues (despite people bringing up his German pronunciation I am not so sure, I am no expert but my understanding of German led me to think his pronunciations are fine). I think one really ought to read both series, Shirer's and this. Shirer's is a lot more constricted to what Hitler was doing and what was going on in the foreign office in particular as a lot of documents had been newly released when he wrote his book.

But Evans is correct that Shirer is a journalist, not a historian, and certainly biased by what he saw being on the ground there. Being a journalist, his writing is a lot more digestible and chronological. That said, Evans frequently quotes Shirer's "Berlin Diaries" as a source and more importantly quotes the letters and diaries of both high ranking Nazis and ordinary Germans. He goes into detail on what effect on the population each critical event had and discussed with an unbiased attitude those who both supported the Nazis and those who abhorred them. This is a true history with many shades of gray but you will finish the book with a much greater understanding of pre-war Germany.

Highly Recommend!

Being a lover of history, I already knew quite a bit about Nazi Germany, its hateful ideology, and the circumstances surrounding its rise to power. Furthermore, I already knew that Richard J. Evans is a prominent authority on modern German history. That being said, when I finally got around to listening to this, I was unprepared for the depth and scope of this amazing tome. Richard J. Evans goes even further back than simply the end of World War I, or even the beginning of it for that matter. It goes all the way back to at least Otto von Bismarck and the Second Reich, and takes the reader/listener on a thoroughly-researched journey through the origins of Nazism and the Third Reich. Heck, Hitler doesn't appear until roughly halfway through the book, and I was genuinely pleased because Nazism and the ideas behind it are much MUCH older that Hitler.

Great Book, Horrible Narration

This is a great book read by a functional illiterate. Evans weaves a complex narrative of the rise of National Socialism beginning with its roots in the attitudes, philosophies, successes, and failures of Germany Nineteenth Century to ultimate ascension to power of Hitler and the National Socialist Party in 1933. While this is a history intended for non-historians, Evans never speaks down to the reader. His analysis eschews simple nostrums, and his sentences, because they are expressing complex and nuanced analysis, take suitably complex forms appropriate to the ideas, details, and conceptual relationships they explicate.

Unfortunately, the narrator fails in the task of reading the sentences with anything approaching the pacing or fluency required to make listening and understanding the text anything but a painful chore. One of the keys to understanding written material is grouping serial ideas together and demonstrating subordinate clauses with intonation. The narrator fails at both these essential tasks. Most obviously, are the long pauses at the beginning of a serial list that incorrectly signals to the listener that the sentence has ended, when, in fact, there are a number of additional items. These long, inappropriate pauses occurred with such frequency that I could never really be sure whether a sentence was complete until well into the next sentence. It also makes it difficult to connect ideas. I often found myself having to play back sentences to get the full meaning. While this would only be a little inconvenient if it were infrequent, the narration was so disjointed at the sentence level as to make listening to Evan's book at times a painful chore, rather than intellectual thrill.

Ultimately, the material in Evan's book outweighs the frustration and irritation created by the incompetent narrative. I only hope that the same narrator was not tasked with reading all three of Evan's volumes about the Nazi's and the Third Reich or that at some point someone publishes a better narration.

a masterpiece of history

I waited until I finished all three volumes of this series to write the review. It's worth the time to listen to these books, to really understand the awful truths of the 3rd Reich from conception to bloody devastation. Some reviewers didn't like the narrator -- STAY WITH HIM. His delivery is a little different but once you get used to him he's PERFECT. Other reviewers didn't like the amount of detail, but I'd say the detail is important in that it's mostly about individuals, it keeps the history visceral as you see what it means to real people. I read a lot of WW2 era history and was surprised how much I didn't understand about the reich.

Madness As Human Achievement

The Coming of the Third Reich
Richard J. Evans
Madness As Human Achievement
The historical circunstances that precede the Third Reich are examined in this well researched and written book. Richard J. Evans analysed the main factors that caused the end of Weimar Republic and the birth of the Nazi Regime. German political development in the end of XIX and the beginning of the XX century is considered. The fate of the First World War and the consequences experienced by german people are linked with the economic and social environment of the time, in order to explain the progressive advance of such a violent and totalitarian regime. Along the way, the central figures of the Nazi Regime - Hitler, Goebbels, Göring - are caracterized and situated in the events of the time. Combining facts descriptions with narratives, the author gave a good portrait of this pivotal moment in western history.

Fantastic

I really enjoyed the details in the book about the everyday lives of people in Germany and the context of things that happened as the Nazis came into power. It provides a much more well rounded picture of the events leading up to World War II than you normally get.

Outstanding.

Great intro to the topic. Thorough but not overly so. I look forward to listening to the next title in this trilogy.