Julia Boyd

"Travellers in the Third Reich is an extraordinary history of the rise of the Nazis based on fascinating first-hand accounts, drawing together a multitude of voices and stories, including students, politicians, musicians, diplomats, schoolchildren, communists, scholars, athletes, poets, journalists, fascists, artists, tourists, even celebrities like Charles Lindbergh and Samuel Beckett. Their experiences create a remarkable three-dimensional picture of Germany under Hitler - one so palpable that the reader will feel, hear, even breathe the atmosphere"--Inside dust jacket.

The Rise of Fascism Through the Eyes of Everyday People

Travellers in the Third Reich

Oberstdorf is a beautiful village high up in the Bavarian Alps, a place where for hundreds of years ordinary people lived simple lives while history was made elsewhere. Yet even here, in the farthest corner of Germany, National Socialism sought to control not only people's lives but also their minds.

By putting one village under the microscope, this book evocatively portrays the momentous period of Nazism in Germany. Why did Germans respond to Hitler in the manner that they did? How did their attitudes change as the war progressed? And when all hope was gone and their country lay in ruins, how did they pick themselves up and start again?

Drawing on archive material, letters, interviews and memoirs, A Village in the Third Reich is an extraordinarily intimate portrait of Germany under Hitler, of the descent into totalitarianism and of the tragedies that befell all of those touched by Nazism. In its pages we meet the Jews who survived - and those who didn't; the Nazi mayor who tried to shield those persecuted by the regime; and a blind boy whose life was thought 'not worth living'. It is a tale of conflicting loyalties and desires, of shattered dreams, despair and destruction. But if this is primarily a tale of political tragedy, it is also one in which human resilience triumphs. These are the stories of ordinary lives at the crossroads of history.

How Ordinary Lives Were Transformed by the Rise of Fascism

A Village in the Third Reich

Without the benefit of hindsight, how do you interpret what's right in front of your eyes? The events that took place in Germany between 1919 and 1945 were dramatic and terrible, but there were also moments of confusion, of doubt--even of hope. How easy was it to know what was actually going on, to grasp the essence of National Socialism, to remain untouched by the propaganda, or predict the Holocaust? Travelers in the Third Reich is an extraordinary history of the rise of the Nazis based on fascinating first-hand accounts, drawing together a multitude of voices and stories, including politicians, musicians, diplomats, schoolchildren, communists, scholars, athletes, poets, fascists, artists, tourists, and even celebrities like Charles Lindbergh and Samuel Beckett. Their experiences create a remarkable three-dimensional picture of Germany under Hitler--one so palpable that the reader will feel, hear, even breathe the atmosphere. These are the accidental eyewitnesses to history. Disturbing, absurd, moving, and ranging from the deeply trivial to the deeply tragic, their tales give a fresh insight into the complexities of the Third Reich, its paradoxes, and its ultimate destruction.

the rise of fascism : 1919-1945

Travelers in the Third Reich

Viajeros En El Tercer Reich

"With its fossil hunters and philosophers, diplomats, dropouts, writers and explorers, missionaries and refugees, Peking's foreign community in the early 20th century was as exotic as the city itself. Always a magnet for larger than life individuals, Peking attracted characters as diverse as Reginald Johnston (tutor to the last emperor), Bertrand Russell, Pierre Loti, Rabrindranath Tagore, Sven Hedin, Peter Fleming, Wallis Simpson and Cecil Lewis. The last great capital to remain untouched by the modern world, Peking both entranced and horrified its foreign residents. Ignoring the poverty outside their gates, they danced, played and squabbled among themselves, oblivious to the great political events that were to shape modern China unfolding around them. This is a dazzling portrait of an eclectic foreign community and of China itself." -- Publisher's website.

The Vanished World of Peking's Foreign Colony

A Dance with the Dragon

Hannah Riddel is a fascinating biography of the British woman who pioneered the treatment of leprosy in Meiji-era Japan. In the late nineteenth century hundreds of Christian missionaries were dispatched to Japan to convert the "heathen," a task that many felt could be accomplished within a few decades. That expectation proved to be wildly optimistic, since today fewer than one percent of Japanese are Christian. The efforts and even the names of those early missionaries are now largely forgotten, but the work of one woman, Hannah Riddell, proved to be vital and lasting. While visiting the Honmyoji temple in Kumamoto, Hannah encountered a group of lepers—"in every degree of loathsomeness"—and her life suddenly changed. Though she continued her efforts to save the souls of ordinary Japanese, Hannah became determined to improve the wretched lives of lepers. Against great odds, she founded one of the first modern leprosariums in Japan, but Hannah's iron will and splendid lifestyle soon put her at odds with her English colleagues and their small missionary community was torn apart. Undaunted, Hannah continued her work independently and came to know many of the great figures of Meiji Japan.

An Englishwoman in Japan

Hannah Riddell

the life of the first woman physician

The excellent doctor Blackwell

“Turister i Tredje riket” är en berättelse om nazismens framväxt under mellankrigstiden. Genom tidigare opublicerade ögonvittnesmål målar journalister, studenter, politiker, celebriteter, kommunister, fascister och turister tillsammans fram Hitlers Tyskland och ger nya insikter i Tredje rikets komplexitet och paradoxer. Historierna rör sig från det triviala till det djupt tragiska.

Vittnesmål från nazismens framväxt

Turister i Tredje riket

Los Angeles Times Book Prize (2019), Spectator Book of the Year (2018), öt hétig a Sunday Times non-fiction bestseller listáján (2018), Daily Telegraph: az év egyik legjobb könyve (2017), The Guardian: az év legjobb könyve (2017). A Szörnyeteg vagy példakép? a nácik felemelkedésének és uralmának egyedülálló összefoglalása, amely nagy munkával gyűjtött, első kézből származó beszámolókra támaszkodik. Egyetemi hallgatók és középiskolás diákok, politikusok, zenészek, diplomaták, kommunisták, fasiszták, tudósok, olimpikonok, költők, újságírók, turisták, sőt olyan hírességek, mint Charles Lindbergh és Samuel Beckett, korabeli naplói, levelei és írásai szolgálnak forrásul. Az olvasó számára szinte láthatóvá, hallhatóvá, kitapinthatóvá válik az az atmoszféra, amiről a kor embere nem sejthette, varázslatos megújuláshoz vagy borzalmas viharhoz vezet-e. Elgondolkodtató kérdések következnek ebből a mai olvasónak: Mennyire lehetett felfogni, mi is történik valójában? Meg lehetett-e ragadni a nemzetiszocializmus lényegét? Érintetlennek lehetett-e maradni a propagandától? Meg lehetett-e jósolni a holokausztot? A történelem akaratlan szemtanúi újszerű betekintést nyújtanak a harmadik birodalom összetettségébe, paradoxonjaiba és végső összeomlásába.

Julia Boyd

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