Rise of Brandenburg-Prussia to 1786 Book

This book is an excellent summary of the historiography of an extremely complex event of world historic significance, namely the holocaust and the complicity of everyday Germans in the genocide. Kershaw himself is one of the leading scholars on Hitler and Nazism. While succinctly summarizing the views of competing historians, Kershaw firmly but thoughtfully asserts his moderate position that most of the German population can be divided into three groups: a rabidly anti-Semitic, violent minority, a sympathetic, pro-Jewish minority, and a mostly apathetic plurality that quietly acceded to the terror. Kershaw considers the arguments of his detractors carefully, at times qualifying his more forceful positions from the past, but mostly sticks to his arguments. He does, unfortunately, have two weaknesses. First, his prose is overly elaborate, almost confusingly so, as he is wont to run-on sentences. Second, I think he pays too much homage to his structuralist mentors in German history. But overall this is a great work, and I highly recommend it as an excellent summary of a debate that still lives on.