A GREAT MANIPULATOR OR A MADMAN..? - Rated 
So he had trouble keeping up at school and was a bit of a misfit, yet he grew up determined to be a leader - and almost took over the world. Frightening to look into the face of the little boy - and the teenager - knowing what he became - and after all these years the world still reels from his atrocities.
Brilliant book for reference if you don`t want to read the whole thing.
A historical magnus opus. - Rated
Looking at some of the earlier reviews I have to wonder if the reviewers have actually understood the book. Kershaw doesn't rehash the 'Hitler as a lucky non-entity' argument. He shows (again and again) how Hitler, through his hard-won dominiation of the Nazi party, coupled with his undoubted genius as an orator, came to power in Germany. The early chapters on the unique social and political conditions within Germany which allowed a demagogue like Hitler to prosper are worth the price of the book alone. Also, the charge that Kershaw is 'woolly' on the root of Hitlers' anti-semitism is deeply flawed. No-one can acurately pin-point what made Hitler so rabidly anti-semetic without resorting to cod-philosophy, which is exactly what real historians (like Kershaw) avoid.
Hitler: Hubris is not only the best book on Hitler I have ever read, it's the best book period.
Intriguing but somewhat disappointing - Rated 
This book was hailed as the tell-all book of the early years of Hitler but I have go agree with `A Reader' below....it's most definitely not ground-breaking. I gave it 3 stars because it gave me a background to the man and followed how he became the most talked about leader of the 20th century but this book failed to get inside the mind of Hitler in any way and really only told me things that I probably could have picked up from any book. Considering it was hailed as the definitive book about Hitler I expected more.
Hubris looks like a huge book but don't be put off.....the last 300 or so pages are dedicated to references and citations so there is in actual fact less than 600 pages of type.....in a very small font granted. Hubris is most certainly worth a read but I found it quite long-winded and repetitive at times. From the sequence of events it was obvious that Hitler's rise to power was more by fluke than design.....I just didn't think Kershaw needed to repeat how much of a fluke it was over and over again. There are many, many groups and individuals to keep track of in this book so it takes quite a bit of concentration and is more certainly not a book I'd recommend you put down and come back to in a few months time. If you're looking for something light-weight then I'd recommend looking elsewhere.
I have already bought Nemeses and although I was disappointed with Hubris I am looking forward to the next installment.
The definitive Hitler biography? I don't think so. - Rated
This is a massively ordinary book about an extraordinary subject. In its 591 pages, Kershaw never says a single thing you could call startling or provocative, though he can be irritating. His syntax is sometimes sloppy, and occasionally he commits the historian's cardinal sins of tendentiousness and imprecision. To give a minor example, it is never enough to tell us that some unfortunate person was beaten up by Nazis - they are always beaten up by Nazi thugs (thugs being at one and the same time redundant and uninformative).
His central thesis - hardly original, and hardly convincing - is that Hitler was a nobody, a mediocrity, who did nothing himself, and achieved success only by the miscalculations and hesitations of others.
Determined to avoid any hint that Hitler was in any way outstanding (except as a "speaker"), Kershaw will not even allow that he was at least an outstanding political mischief-maker or, even more, an outstanding villain.
Again and again he expresses the surprise of a diligent, well-educated man that someone he sees as an idler and an ignoramus could have achieved so much. In this, he repeats the mistake made throughout the nineteen-twenties and thirties by the establishment figures who consistently underestimated Hitler, and were consistently wrong-footed by him.
Reading the effusive blurbs on the cover and fly-leaf ("trenchant", "magisterial", "the Hitler biography for the 21st Century"), one can only assume that the writers have not actually read this volume through, or have never read better, briefer, and more incisive studies of Hitler. Read AJP Taylor's "Origins of the Second World War", or the section on Hitler in John Keegan's "The Mask Of Command", and you will learn more about Hitler's personality than Kershaw conveys in this entire book.
Yet this is a book worth reading. Its reasonably ordered mass of facts about a very dangerous phenomenon is of lasting use and relevance. And despite its sometimes paint-drying pace, it conveys moments of genuine dismay - that in the mid 1920s a monster was being born, and that in the early 1930s it was all too easy to convert civilisation into barbarity.
This may not be "the Hitler biography for the 21st Century", but it will do for now.
A fantastic and level headed book. - Rated
This book allows the reader to understand and - more importantly - rationalise the sequence of events that led an opinionated and egotistical art-student wannabe (too lazy to study even for the entrance exams) to become one of the 20th century's most destructive and loathsome men. It can be seen how under-currents of nationalism, anti-Semitism, anti-Weimar State feelings and right-wing ideologies were all brought to the forefront of German politics after WW1 by obscure parties who gradually became larger as their ideas caught on with a German population who felt humiliated by their defeat in 1918. To be honest, it made me feel slightly restless and nauseous, all too aware of where all of this ended, and even worse, the fact that the political views of the Nazis aren't entirely dead yet... This is a great, but very complex book, and would recommend taking notes of who the various men and women in this book were and their roles, thereby getting the most out of this work. And don't forget to read the second book 'Nemesis'!
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