1 1

The Death of Democracy Spiral-Bound | 2019-06-18

Benjamin Carter Hett

$20.29 - Free Shipping
A riveting account of how the Nazi Party came to power and how the failures of the Weimar Republic and the shortsightedness of German politicians allowed it to happen

Why did democracy fall apart so quickly and completely in Germany in the 1930s? How did a democratic government allow Adolf Hitler to seize power? In The Death of Democracy, Benjamin Carter Hett answers these questions, and the story he tells has disturbing resonances for our own time.

To say that Hitler was elected is too simple. He would never have come to power if Germany's leading politicians had not responded to a spate of populist insurgencies by trying to co-opt him, a strategy that backed them into a corner from which the only way out was to bring the Nazis in. Hett lays bare the misguided confidence of conservative politicians who believed that Hitler and his followers would willingly support them, not recognizing that their efforts to use the Nazis actually played into Hitler's hands. They had willingly given him the tools to turn Germany into a vicious dictatorship.

Benjamin Carter Hett is a leading scholar of twentieth-century Germany and a gifted storyteller whose portraits of these feckless politicians show how fragile democracy can be when those in power do not respect it. He offers a powerful lesson for today, when democracy once again finds itself embattled and the siren song of strongmen sounds ever louder.

Publisher: Macmillan
Original Binding: Trade Paperback
Pages: 320 pages
ISBN-10: 1250210860
Item Weight: 0.6 lbs
Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.9 x 8.2 inches
Named "Book of the Week" by CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS

"At a time of deep distress over the stability of democracy in America and elsewhere, Benjamin Carter Hett's chronicle of the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Adolf Hitler could not be more timely. 'The Death of Democracy' makes for chilling reading." -- Roger Lowenstein, The Washington Post

"[An] extremely fine study of the end of constitutional rule in Germany. . . . With careful prose and fine scholarship, with fine thumbnail sketches of individuals and concise discussions of institutions and economics, . . . [Benjamin Carter Hett] sensitively describes a moral crisis that preceded a moral catastrophe." -- Timothy Snyder, The New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice)

"If this is an oft-told and tragic tale, Hett's brisk and lucid study offers compelling new perspectives inspired by current threats to free societies around the world. . . . It is both eerie and enlightening how much of Hett's account rings true in our time." -- E. J. Dionne Jr., The Washington Post

"Particularly instructive. . . . A penetrating study of how Nazism overtook the Weimar Republic. Hett never mentions Trump; the societal parallels are, of course, far from exact. But his account carries a troubling ? and clearly intentional ? resonance." -- Richard North Patterson, Huffington Post

"Intelligent, well-informed. . . . Hett provides a lesson about the fragility of democracy and the danger of that complacent belief that liberal institutions will always protect us." -- The Times (London)

"Fascinating. . . . Readable and well-researched." -- Nicholas Shakespeare, The Daily Telegraph

"A fast-paced narrative enlivened by vignette and character sketches. . . . Hett reminds us that violence was at [fascism's] core. But he also insists that Hitler did not prevail because Weimar was doing badly. On the contrary, it was doing remarkably well in tough conditions: the end came because conservative elites thought they could use the Nazis for their own purposes and realised their mistake too late." -- Mark Mazower, Financial Times

Benjamin Carter Hett is the author of Burning the Reichstag, Crossing Hitler, and Death in the Tiergarten. He is a professor of history at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and holds a Ph.D. in history from Harvard University and a law degree from the University of Toronto. Born in Rochester, New York, he grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, and now lives in New York City.