Documents the radical and rapid transformation of Germany in its first year under Nazi rule, exploring how virtually every area of life, from the arts and religion to education and literature, was reordered to comply with the regime's preparations for the war, in an account that also describes the increasing brutality that was suffered by marginalized groups. 50,000 first printing.Bookswagon.com Review The second work in a planned three-volume series (after 2004'sComing of the Third Reich) this book starts with the Nazis' complete assumption of power and creation of a one-party state in 1933, and goes to September 1939 and the beginning of World War II. In sharp detail, Evans shows how Hitler seized upon his political victory and immediately began his plan for the Nazi infiltration of every aspect of German society. The Nazi propaganda blitz covered everything from local councils to social clubs to all voluntary associations. And when propaganda didn't work, coercion and fear did. At the behest of Hitler, the brownshirts and SS (secret police) ruthlessly harassed, beat, and murdered the Jews and Communists first, but later targeted anyone who showed even the slightest criticism of Nazi activities. Those Germans who disapproved of the Nazis were mainly confined to acts of passive resistance to Hitler's totalitarian rule. Nationalism proved to be the one issue capable of galvanizing the nation, as the Nazis' growing power helped to erase the shame and humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles that closed World War I. Over the course of the book, Evans shows how everything Hitler did in this period was designed to prepare the nation for a war--"a life and death struggle"--whose aim was less geographical conquest than racial purity. Hitler's main objective was "to remould the minds, spirits and bodies of the German people to make them capable and worthy of the role of the new master-race that awaited them." Though Hitler did not work alone, Evans makes it clear that he was the overwhelming driving force behind it all, including policies regarding education, eugenics, and foreign affairs. Well written and logically organized, The Third Reich in Power is an impressive work of meticulous, readable history. --Shawn Carkonen From The New Yorker In the second part of a three-volume history of the Third Reich, Evans examines Hitler's regime in the six years running up to the Second World War, exploring everything from art to the economy and shifting diplomatic alliances. He offers exhaustive statistical analysis coupled with the compelling personal narratives of dignitaries, dissidents, and such ordinary Germans as a Hamburg schoolteacher. A portrait emerges of a state that penetrated and transformed every aspect of life, and yet remained incoherent and often inept. Evans shows that Nazism was all the more effective for its irrationality and arbitrariness: there was no logic in which to take refuge. Language was perverted ("brutal" and "ruthless" were terms of praise), laws were enacted to sanction mayhem retroactively, and faith in science yielded pseudo-archaic notions of "blood and soil." Copyright © 2006 From Booklist This second of Evans' three-volume history of the Nazis examines the consolidation of the regime and the active support or passive acquiescence it received in pursuing its aims up to its invasion of Poland. The figure of Hitler intrudes according to his interventions in one sphere or another, for Evans organizes the material topically, by way of estimating how in thrall Germany was to the Nazi utopia of compulsory racial engineering. Its prerequisite was soc-iety-wide terror, on which played the regime's propaganda. This twin assault on society, Evans emphasizes, must be kept in mind when considering any aspect of the Nazi nightmare, particularly the perplexity common to general readers and historians about why Germans went along with the Nazis. Obviously there