This brief yet comprehensive survey of the Third Reich, based on current research findings, provides a balanced approach in examining Hitler's role in the history of the Third Reich. Coverage encompasses the economic, social, and political forces that made possible the rise and growth of Nazism as well as the institutional, cultural, and social life of the Third Reich; the Second World War; and the Holocaust. For general readers who want a deeper understand of this period in German history.
Jackson Spielvogel is associate professor emeritus of history at The Pennsylvania State University. He received his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University, where he specialized in Reformation history under Harold J. Grimm. His articles and reviews have appeared in such journals as Moreana, Journal of General Education, Catholic Historical Review, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte , and American Historical Review. He has also contributed chapters or articles to The Social History of the Reformation, The Holy Roman Empire: A Dictionary Handbook, Simon Wiesenthal Center Annual of Holocaust Studies, and Utopian Studies. His work has been supported by fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation for study and research in Nürnberg, Germany, and the Foundation for Reformation Research. At Penn State, he helped inaugurate the Western civilization courses as well as a popular course on Nazi Germany. He is the author of Western Civilization, published in 1991 (seventh edition, 2009). He is the coauthor (with William Duiker) of World History, first published in 1998 (sixth edition, 2010), and The Essential World History (third edition, 2008).
Professor Spielvogel has won five major university-wide teaching awards. He held the Penn State Teaching Fellowship, the university's most prestigious teaching award in 1988-1989. In 1996 he won the Dean Arthur Ray Warnock Award for Outstanding Faculty Member and in 2000 the Schreyer Honors College Excellence in Teaching Award.
David Redles received his Ph.D. in history from Pennsylvania State University and is currently associate professor of history at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, Ohio. He is author of Hitler’s Millennial Reich: Apocalyptic Belief and the Search for Salvation (hardcover: 2005, paperback: 2008). He also contributed essays to the following publications: The Fundamentalist Mindset: Psychological Perspectives on Religion, Violence, and History, Charles B. Strozier and David M. Terman, and James W. Jones, eds. (2010); End of Days: Essays on the Apocalypse from Antiquity to Modernity, Karolyn Kinane and Michael A. Ryan, eds. (2009); and War in Heaven/Heaven on Earth: Theories of the Apocalyptic, Glen McGhee and Stephen O’Leary, eds. (2005).
