"In the seventy years since the demise of the Third Reich, there has been a significant transformation in the ways in which the modern world understands Nazism. In this brilliant and eye-opening collection, Richard J. Evans, the acclaimed author of the Third Reich trilogy, offers a critical commentary on that transformation, exploring how major changes in perspective have informed research and writing on the Third Reich in recent years. Drawing on his most notable writings from the last two decades, Evans reveals the shifting perspectives on Nazism's rise to political power, its economic intricacies, and its subterranean extension into postwar Germany. Evans considers how the Third Reich is increasingly viewed in a broader international context, as part of the age of imperialism; discusses the growing emphasis on the larger economic and cultural circumstances of the era; and emphasizes the development of research into Nazi society, particularly in the understanding of Nazi Germany as a political system based on popular approval and consent. Exploring the complex relationship between memory and history, Evans also points out the places where the growing need to confront the misdeeds of Nazism and expose the complicity of those who participated has led to crude and sweeping condemnation, when instead historians should be making careful distinctions. Written with Evans' sharp-eyed insight and characteristically compelling style, these essays offer a summation of the collective cultural memory of Nazism in the present, and suggest the degree to which memory must be subjected to the close scrutiny of history"-- "Since the end of the twentieth century, our understanding of Nazi Germany has been transformed in a variety of ways. In this collected volume, Richard J. Evans offers a critical commentary on that transformation, exploring how major changes in perspective have informed research and writing on the Third Reich in the last two decades.The essays, drawn from Evans' writings over the last two decades, move from the genesis of Nazism, through its rise to political power and its economic and political intricacies, to postwar Germany, considering at each point the suppression, reappropriation, and survival of memory. Evans also explores the 'global turn' in historical studies in recent years, revealing how it has broadened our understanding of the Third Reich in an international context; considers the development of research in the area of Nazi society, particularly in the understanding of Nazi Germany as a political system based on popular approval and consent; and discusses the growing focus on postwar Germany and its subterranean continuities with the Nazi era"--