Classic WWII History
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
Publication: New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960. First Edition.
Notes: After nearly seventy years, no one has written a better account of Adolf Hitler and the transformation of Germany into a National Socialist state. Shirer was a fine writer, and he reported from Germany during much of the time period covered by this book.
Subsequent historians have criticized various aspects of Shirer's book, which is rooted in his experience as a journalist rather than as a trained historian. While those critics can identify this or that mistake, none of them can pretend to describe what it was like to watch the transformation of Germany firsthand, and very few modern historians can match Shirer as a writer.
The first edition is uncommon, with 12,500 copies in the initial print run. While not a huge first printing, given that Simon and Schuster issued The Rise and Fall at $10, more than double the price of the average book, they clearly felt good about it. For comparison, To Kill a Mockingbird, published the same year, had a jacket price of $3.95.
"A biographer will someday write the story of the enormous hurdles Shirer had to climb to sell the book...; how he went broke well before the book was done and had to beg grants and loans in order to finish it; how after his name appeared in Red Channels, a publication that named suspected Leftists in television and radio, his freelancing efforts all but ended; and how the massive book (1,245 pages) was panned by academic historians, many of whom had neither the talent nor the work ethic to write a similar book. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, published in October 1960, won for Shirer the National Book Award and sold one million copies in hardcover"—Steve Wick, The Long Night, p. 231. For the first print run, see Shirer's afterword to the 30th anniversary reissue.
xii, 1245, [7] pages.
Edition + Condition: First edition (stated first printing). Page edges slightly spotted, else near fine, in a very good dust jacket. There are a couple of one-inch tears to the back panel of the jacket; there's some lifting to the lamination along the top edge.
Item No: #284110
Price: $750