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Readers might believe there is no need for another book on Adolf Hitler. After all, there have been tens of thousands over the last 60-plus years. Yet German historian Volker Ullrich’s two-volume biography—the first, published in English in 2016, on Hitler’s rise, and the second, new this year, on the denouement of his reign—is a testament to what a great historian can do with original research and brilliant synthesis on even the most-trodden terrain. This second volume, translated to English by Jefferson Chase, explains how the seeds of Hitler’s downfall sprung from the very same qualities (obsession, fanaticism, deceit, refusal to listen to others) that helped him rise to power.

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