Synopsis

In this groundbreaking new history, Adam Tooze provides the clearest picture to date of the Nazi war machine and its undoing. There was no aspect of Nazi power untouched by economics-it was Hitler's obsession and the reason the Nazis came to power in the first place. The Second World War was fought, in Hitler's view, to create a European empire strong enough to take on the United States. But as The Wages of Destruction makes clear, Hitler's armies were never powerful enough to beat either Britain or the Soviet Union-and Hitler never had a serious plan as to how he might defeat the United States. The Wages of Destruction is an eye-opening and controversial account that will challenge conventional interpretations of the period and will find an enthusiastic readership among fans of Ian Kershaw and Richard Evans. BACKCOVER: Advance praise for The Wages of Destruction:
"One of the most important and original books to be published about the Third Reich in the past twenty years. A tour de force."
-Niall Ferguson, author of Colossus

"Unputdownable epic history . . . Transforms not only our reading of Hitler's sordid regime, but the history of the twentieth century itself. Brilliantly written, its original scholarship is telling and lightly borne on every page."
-John Cornwell, author of Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII

Antonio Thompson - Library Journal

Tooze (economic history, Univ. of Cambridge) argues that the state of the Third Reich's economy was as important as any ideological motives determining the Nazi regime's policies and its ultimate failures in World War II. He considers the idea of economic determinism against the obviously financially detrimental Nazi objective to destroy European Jewry. The Nazi economy, he concludes, was never in a position to take on both Britain and the Soviet Union in the war. Once the United States joined the Allies, the Third Reich's taxed economy failed to keep up with the demands of a global war, which spelled impending defeat for Germany. This exhaustive work has two major flaws. Tooze's obscure thesis only becomes clear after over 600 pages, and is hardly a decisive punch. Additionally, while the book is well cited and indexed, it lacks a bibliography, which is available on Tooze's web page, but this is not convenient for readers. In the end, however, this lengthy work is reasonably priced, and academic libraries should consider it for their serious scholars of Nazi Germany.

Biography

Adam Tooze is senior lecturer in economic history at the University of Cambridge and the Gurnee Hart Fellow in history at Jesus College, Cambridge.