Includes bibliographical references (pages 154-156) and index.

A synthesis and evaluation of recent works (particularly by German scholars) on Hitler and the Third Reich, dealing with issues such as the essence of Nazism, politics, and economics. Ch. 5 (p. 82-106), "Hitler and the Holocaust", summarizes the intentionalist and structuralist views expressed in the "historians' debate" and suggests a compromise to explain how the Final Solution evolved. States that although Hitler's hatred of the Jews was undoubtedly constant, its relationship to actual policy changed over time as policy options narrowed. Hitler himself took little part in the formulation of that policy, but was rather the charismatic catalyst for initiatives "from below" (e.g. from the SS-SD-Gestapo organizational complex, the Wehrmacht, the civil service, and industrialists) and gave legitimation to those initiatives, instigated for the most part by the RSHA when it came to the Final Solution. The 2nd ed. (1989) contains two new chapters - on the trend towards "Alltagsgeschichte" in German historiography and Martin Broszat's proposal for historicization of the Nazi era, and on the "Historikerstreit" and its background in West German society and politics.,(From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism).

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