Not another book about the Nazis! The heart sinks further at the first sentence of this 600-page volume: 'This book is the first of three on the history of the Third Reich.' Can there really be anything new left to say – and isn't such length inordinate?

Richard Evans, Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, meets these objections head-on in the well-argued apologia which prefaces his trilogy. Yes, he concedes, the latest bibliography lists 37,000 works on the subject, up from 25,000 less than a decade ago, and multiplying fast. Few of these books, however, address the