About the Author

Ron Rosenbaum grew up on Long Island, New York. A graduate of Yale with a degree in English literature, he left Yale Graduate School to write full-time. His essays and journalism have appeared in Harper's, Esquire, The New Republic, Vanity Fair, and The New Yorker; he's done eight cover stories for the New York Times Magazine. He is the author of four previous books, including one novel and three collections of his essays and journalism, most recently Travels with Dr Death and Other Unusual Investigations.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and historian Thomas Powers called him one of the few distinctive voices of modern American literary journalism. His work has been characterized by the essayist Phillip Lopate as combining the skills of a terrific investigative reporter and an accomplished literary stylist with an idiosyncratic streak all his own.

More than ten years ago, he began investigating certain unresolved controversies among Hitler biographers, and ultimately embarked on an odyssey that took him from Vienna and Munich to London, Paris, and Jerusalem. The book that emerged combines original research and dramatic face-to-face encounters with historians, philosophers, psychologists, and theologians as they attempt to account for the elusive figure of Adolf Hitler and the meanings projected upon him by his explainers.

Currently Ron Rosenbaum writes for the New York Times Magazine, and The New York Observer, and teaches a course on literary journalism at the Columbia Graduate School of journalism.

Reviews

"Fascinating . . . A provocative work of cultural history that is as compelling as it is thoughtful, as readable as it is smart . . . Mr. Rosenbaum has made important contribution to our understanding not just of Hitler, but of the cultural processes by which we try to come to terms with history as well...He has written as exciting, lucid book informed by old-fashioned moral rigor and common sense."-- Michiko Kakutani, "New York Times""Glistens with insight and intelligence and shimmers with originality."-- Gabriel Schoenfeld, "Commentary""Cultural criticism served up as riveting narrative history...with words and ideas that surprise, amuse and even elevate the reader." -- Mare Fisher, "Washington Post""A product of exhaustive historical research and meticulous contemporary reporting . . . an intellectual tour de force."-- George Will"Intriguing, thought provoking and intelligent."-- Ian Kershaw author of "Hitler: 1889-1936: Hubris, " in "The Guardian" (UK)"A remarkable journey by one of the most original journalists and writers of our time."-- David Remnick, author of "Lenin's Tomb""Brilliant . . . Restlessly probing and deeply intelligent."-- "Time"

Seeking explanations for Hitler's monumental evil and the Holocaust, Rosenbaum traveled from Vienna and Munich to London, Paris and Jerusalem, interviewing leading historians, biographers, philosophers, psychologists and theologians. While this convoluted, selective survey of Hitler scholarship will frustrate readers looking for hard answers, it offers groundbreaking insights into the enigma of Hitler's psyche. Essayist Rosenbaum (Travels with Dr. Death), a frequent contributor to the New York Times Magazine, gives voice to a diversity of opinion, from Hugh Trevor-Roper, whose best-selling The Last Days of Hitler presents the Fhrer as a self-deluded demigod, sincere in his demonic hatreds, to Oxford historian Alan Bullock, for whom Hitler is a shrewdly calculating, knowingly evil politician. Rosenbaum also interviewed critic/novelist George Steiner, who has interpreted Hitler as an "evil genius"Äthe culmination of dark forces within European civilization; British historian of religion Hyam Maccoby, who argues that Christianity must bear responsibility for the Holocaust; documentary filmmaker Claude Lanzmann; and best-selling Harvard scholar Daniel Goldhagen (Hitler's Willing Executioners). Rosenbaum effectively re-creates the hitherto largely untold story of the heroic anti-Hitler Munich journalists who courageously took on the Nazis from 1920 to 1933. And he provides compelling testimony refuting the oft-repeated claim that Hitler had one undescended testicle. Author tour. (July)