What are the BEST books (one of each if you had to pick) to understand the rise of, STALIN, MAO and the NAZIs.
I am looking for the most readable and comprehensive. I realize each of these areas can be a lifetime of work but i have found in every genre there are always superbly written books and encompass the topic.
Any recs. appreciated.
Thank You
by Kal-El_Earth
2 Comments
In the Garden of Beasts (Erik Larson) and All the frequent Trouble of Our Days (Rebecca Donner) are an excellent one-two punch on the rise of the Nazis.
My favorite is *The anatomy of fascism* by Robert Paxton. It’s readable, comprehensive, works as a solid foundation all around.
On that note, you’d probably learn this while reading that book, but…Stalin and Mao were not fascists. You may hate them, you may disagree completely with their political philosophies, but those philosophies were emphatically not any version of fascism.