Broken Lives

Broken Lives: How Ordinary Germans Experienced the 20th Century

Konrad H. Jarausch

The gripping stories of ordinary Germans who lived through World War II, the Holocaust, and Cold War partition鈥攂ut also recovery, reunification, and rehabilitation

Hardcover

Price:: $22.95/拢18.99
ISBN:
Published:: Nov 19, 2019
Pages:: 464
Size:: 6.13 x 9.25 in.
Illus:: 30 b/w illus.
Main_subject:: History

Paperback

Price:: $22.95/拢18.99
ISBN:
Published:: Nov 19, 2019
Pages:: 464
Size:: 6.13 x 9.25 in.
Illus:: 30 b/w illus.
Main_subject:: History

ebook

Price:: $22.95/拢18.99
ISBN:
Published:: Nov 19, 2019
Pages:: 464
Size:: 6.13 x 9.25 in.
Illus:: 30 b/w illus.
Main_subject:: History

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Broken Lives is a gripping account of ordinary Germans who came of age under Hitler and whose lives were scarred and sometimes destroyed by what they saw and did. Drawing on six dozen memoirs by Germans born in the 1920s, Konrad Jarausch chronicles the unforgettable stories of people who not only lived through the Third Reich, World War II, the Holocaust, and Cold War partition, but also participated in Germany’s astonishing postwar recovery, reunification, and rehabilitation. Bringing together the voices of men and women, perpetrators and victims, Broken Lives offers new insights about persistent questions. Why did so many Germans support Hitler through years of wartime sacrifice and Nazi inhumanity? How did they finally distance themselves from the Nazi past and come to embrace human rights? The result is a powerful portrait of the experiences of average Germans who journeyed into, through, and out of the abyss of a dark century.

Awards and Recognition

One of Kirkus Reviews' Best Nonfiction Books of 2018
Smithsonian: Best History Books of 2018
One of Choice Reviews' Outstanding Academic Titles of 2018

Konrad H. Jarausch is the Lurcy Professor of European Civilization at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His many books include Out of Ashes: A New History of Europe in the Twentieth Century and Reluctant Accomplice: A Wehrmacht Soldier's Letters from the Eastern Front (both Princeton).

"Broken Lives is a remarkable study. . . . [and a] widely accessible and fascinating read."鈥擬ichelle Mouton, American Historical Review

"A wide-ranging, panoramic, revealing treatment. . . . For those who seek to understand the German experience in the twentieth century, Jarausch has done a tremendous service."—Cass R. Sunstein, New York Review of Books

"Epitomises social history at its very best."—Hester Vaizey, Times Higher Education

"[A] fascinating study."—Neil Gregor, Literary Review

"Jarausch greatly succeeds at helping readers envision what it was like to attempt a normal life in the midst of depression, war, revolution, and tyranny."—Nathan J. Ristuccia, Christian Century

"A revealing study of the lives of 'ordinary Germans' under the Third Reich and its aftermath. . . . Jarausch's history complicates our understanding of German society during the early decades of the 20th century."—Kirkus Reviews

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