Hey,
Can historians recommend a biography of Hitler and/or a book about Germany under Hitler, that has more of a narrative or polemical flow? I'm a philosophy student, not history, and the history books I can usually get through are usually less 'scholarly' presented and more polemical or literary. E.g., I love Zinn's Peoples' History, and I love the way Simon Sebag Montifore can make history read like a novel (Stephen Kinzer seems to have this ability too). So basically, any history books on the subject in question that are not just a list of dates, and events, told in a chronological order, without flare.
Thank you!
I think your best bet in terms of the "great biographies" of Hitler would be Ian Kershaw's Hubris and Nemesis (There is an abridged one-volume version as well - I haven't read it but it's worth considering given that the two-volume version spans 1200+ pages). While they are very much what I would call "scholarly", Kershaw takes a more narrative and perhaps hermeneutical approach to the subject than most, and he does not concern himself with as many minutiae as many other authors do. The perspective of his books is essentially focused on the role that political power played in Hitler's life (As he put it, for Hitler, power was the "ultimate aphrodisiac"), and the contrast between the boring, pedestrian "un-person" Adolf Hitler, and the messianic Führer in the speech halls.
I would also strongly suggest his "The Hitler Myth", which is pretty short, on the role that the image of Hitler played in the public sphere.