The Nightmare Years: 1930-40

Very interesting book. I've previously read Shirer's famous book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I'd also read his Berlin Diaries, which was just the publication of the diaries he kept during the time period he lived in Berlin under Nazi rule.

This book falls somewhere in the middle. It isn't just diaries. There's more of a narrative, combining info from his diaries, his own memories (the book was written decades the Nazi era ended), and information that wasn't known until after Nazi documents and other historical facts were learned.

One of the most interesting things about Shirer's works on the Nazis is the fact that he was there, covering them, observing them, meeting them. It gives him a perspective that you rarely get in historical works. There's obviously a downside to that too, but here I think it works well. It's interesting to see Shirer and Edward Murrow helping to establish radio news broadcasts.

There is a very short section at the very beginning where Shirer travels to Afghanistan. This is interesting, but given that the rest of the book is focused on Nazis, and this is book 2 in his 3 book autobiography, he should've just put that chapter in the first book.