Life and Times in Nazi Germany

Description

Lisa Pine assembles an impressive array of influential scholars in Life and Times in Nazi Germany to explore the variety and complexity of life in Germany under Hitler's totalitarian regime. The book is a thematic collection of essays that examine the extent to which social and cultural life in Germany was permeated by Nazi aims and ambitions. Each essay deals with a different theme of daily German life in the Nazi era, with topics including food, fashion, health, sport, art, tourism and religion all covered in chapters based on original and expert scholarship. Life and Times in Nazi Germany, which also includes 24 images and helpful end-of-chapter select bibliographies, provides a new lens through which to observe life in Nazi Germany - one that highlights the everyday experience of Germans under Hitler's rule. It illuminates aspects of life under Nazi control that are less well-known and examines the contradictions and paradoxes that characterised daily life in Nazi Germany in order to enhance and sophisticate our understanding of this period in the nation's history. This is a crucial volume for all students of Nazi Germany and the history of Germany in the 20th century.

Lisa Pine is Reader in History at London South Bank University, UK. She is the author of Education in Nazi Germany (2010), Hitler's 'National Community': Society and Culture in Nazi Germany (2007) and Nazi Family Policy, 1933-1945 (1997).

This collection of ten essays, rich with research and observations, helps demonstrate that history from below does not have to ignore other approaches. Especially when it relates the everyday to political decision-making, it adds dimensions and not just texture ... It demonstrates the continuing vitality of everyday life history and would be particularly useful for college courses not only in that field but also twentieth-century German or European history, not to mention courses in Nazi Germany. * H-Net Reviews * This is a stimulating and wide-ranging collection of essays. It would serve well as the basis for a seminar on the social history of the Third Reich. * Journal of European Studies * Finding and shedding light on aspects of social and cultural life 'that are less well known' (p. 2) is no small task; all the more impressive that the essays in this volume invariably succeed ... Contributions are original in approach, compelling in argumentation and analytically sophisticated. Life and Times in Nazi Germany is an essential volume for all students of culture and society in the Third Reich. * German History * A well-organized and original set of essays ... this book opens a window for English-speakers onto the new perspectives being opened up by younger German scholars on issues of daily life in the Third Reich. The range of topics is wide but coherence is maintained by the focus on the paradoxes of daily life in a variety of different social, institutional and cultural milieus. * Richard Overy, University of Exeter, UK * This excellent collection of essays succeeds in finding new sites of inquiry, and new approaches, into daily life in the Third Reich. Exploring the degree to which Nazi ideology, goals and policies infected everyday life and the thinking of ordinary Germans, this compelling volume convincingly makes the case that ordinary Germans' perceptions of the regime were more complex than previously assumed, with contradictions and paradoxes that require nuanced analysis presented here. * Jason Crouthamel, Grand Valley State University, USA *