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Title details for Personality and Power by Ian Kershaw - Available

Personality and Power

Builders and Destroyers of Modern Europe

by Ian Kershaw
Matt Bates
Audiobook
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One of New York Magazine's Most Anticipated Books of the Fall
How far can a single leader alter the course of history?
From one of the leading historians of twentieth-century Europe and the author of the definitive biography of Hitler, Personality and Power is a masterful reckoning with how character conspired with opportunity to create the modern age’s uniquely devastating despots—and how and why other countries found better paths. The modern era saw the emergence of individuals who had command over a terrifying array of instruments of control, persuasion and death. Whole societies were reshaped and wars were fought, often with a merciless contempt for the most basic norms. At the summit of these societies were leaders whose personalities somehow enabled them to do whatever they wished, regardless of the consequences for others.
Ian Kershaw’s new book is a compelling, lucid and challenging attempt to understand these rulers, whether those operating on the widest stage (Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini) or with a more national impact (Tito, Franco). What was it about these leaders, and the times in which they lived, that allowed them such untrammelled and murderous power? And what brought that era to an end? In a contrasting group of profiles—from Churchill to de Gaulle, Adenauer to Gorbachev and Thatcher to Kohl)—Kershaw uses his exceptional skills as an iconic historian to explore how strikingly different figures wielded power.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    November 15, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593629321
      • File size: 501860 KB
      • Duration: 17:25:32

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      September 26, 2022
      Historian Kershaw (The Global Age) profiles 12 leaders who shaped 20th-century Europe in this astute survey. Focusing on “crisis conditions, the type of leader these produce and the role of individuals at crucial junctures of change,” Kershaw follows a similar pattern in each essay, beginning with the “personality traits and the preconditions that... provid the potential for the leader to acquire power,” then exploring how that power was exercised and offering an assessment of the leader’s legacy. Dictators abound (Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, and Adolf Hitler, among them), but Kershaw also illuminates how democratic heads of state expanded their authority in response to crises, like the 1958 military coup in Algeria, which allowed Charles de Gaulle “to mould the nascent Fifth Republic as a vehicle for his own extended power.” Light is also shed on Stalin’s enduring popularity in Russia; Margaret Thatcher’s view, influenced by her reading of Friedrich von Hayek, that trade unions “were the source of the disease that had eaten into British greatness”; and Tito’s use of “subtle diplomacy” to maintain Yugoslavia’s role “as the pivot between East and West in the Cold War.” Striking an expert balance between personality profiles and political and social analysis, this is a rewarding study of a turbulent century in European history. Photos.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      With studied detachment, narrator Matt Bates takes listeners through a roster of this past century's world shakers: Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Churchill, a dozen in all, eleven men and one woman, Margaret Thatcher. Bates, who is familiar to listeners of Bernard Cornwell's Last Kingdom novels, is sonorously, elegantly British, and a master of articulation. He smoothly assumes the persona of Kershaw, an eminent authority on modern European history and leading biographer of Hitler, now approaching 80. The narrative is clear, factual, concise, as good a synopsis of Europe's previous century as you might find. The individual portraits, too, are impressively terse and insightful. With his customary grace and precision, Bates conveys these qualities to the best effect, flavoring the narrative but never overpowering it. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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