Editor's Choice November 2005  War Without End  What to read
this month  Still more books about World War II?! Yes, and as
exasperating as this may seem, it's only appropriate that the
cataclysm aptly characterized by John Keegan as "the largest
single event in human history" should generate a
disproportionate number of significant works. This one, the
second part of a three-volume history of Nazi Germany, covers
the period from the Nazi seizure of power, in 1933, to the start
of the Second World War, in 1939. A wonder of synthesis and
acute judgment, this work when completed will be the definitive
study for at least a generation. Although repetition and an
occasional diffuseness mar Evans's magnificent achievement
(these flaws vitiated his first volume as well), when his game
is on, as it usually is, few can rival his ability to write
crisply argued history. Evans, a Cambridge historian, assesses
the corrosive effects on German society of the Nazis' network of
surveillance and intimidation, the extent to whi