This book does a reasonably good job of showing how democracy dies. It died in Germany when a republic became a dictatorship. Since human beings are prone to the same mistakes, democracy could very well die elsewhere. If people think there is an unfair comparison here with the Trump administration, perhaps they are giving Trump too much credit and American traditions, not enough. There is definitely food for thought in this reflection on the Weimar Republic. No two countries have the exact same storyline any more than any two individuals. However, people need to think and not be swept away by rhetoric. Books help us think.I just reviewed The Death of Democracy by Benjamin Carter Hett. #TheDeathOfDemocracy #NetGalley

A compelling look at the origins of Nazism. I’m a lifelong student of the Third Reich and this valuable book filled in some gaping holes in the history of those times (and before). The book also seems frighteningly topical, given the current state of the republic. Recommended to all 20th century history buffs

How Hitler was able to come into power in Germany has always been an interesting debate. What could have been differently? How much of our debates are 20-20 hindsight versus what was actually seen and known at the time? Could something like that ever happen again? Benjamin Carter Hett's The Death of Democracy: Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic is the latest look into the Germany of the 1920s and 1930s and an attempt to understand what happened.

Unfortunately, for as potentially interesting as the topic is, Hett completely failed to keep me engaged in the book. He assumes his reader is familiar with the Weimar republic and much of the German condition post World War I, and mentions conspiracies and people that he only later goes back to explain. There was a level of back and forth to his timeline that kept me uncertain of the order of many of the events he was talking about. I found it hard to keep track of the different political parties in Germany for most of the book, thought whether that was a lack of understanding on my part or Hett's to explain in memorable detail I still don't know. Often repetitive, hammering in points that the readers easily grasps and remembers while glancing off topics you wish he's spent more time on, Hett explores how no one single event created the situation, but decades of cultural, political, and economic change and unrest. By the end of the book I didn't feel like I had a much clearer grasp on the topic as when I started, but Hett did write one idea that stuck out to me, and probably summed up much of the situation: sometimes it isn't about reality. Statements can be demonstrably untrue, but it is all about what people emotionally need to believe, even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

For a book that was only a little over 200 pages, reading it seemed to be an uphill slog the whole way, and much more work than it was worth. Hett spent as much time making comparisons between Germany in the 1930s and the Nazi methods and today's American political climate (while carefully not naming names) that it seemed to me the end point of his book was not so much to explain how Hitler and the Nazis managed to come into power (which he had only limited success with for me) as showing how it can happen again today. Anyone who really wants to give this book a try to see what they can learn should just read the last chapter, which is as much a summary of the rest of the book as a wrap up and lead in to World War II. It gives you the clearest ideas without actually making you read the entire book.

This book was very informative in telling about Hitler's rise to power. This is a time period that was not covered too in depth in my history classes, so I have always wanted to learn more about it.

Four out of Five Stars

I received a free Kindle copy of The Death of Democracy by Benjamin Carter Hett courtesy of Net Galley  and Henry Holt and Company, the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would post a review on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and my fiction book review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus pages.

I requested this book as I have read a number of books on World War II and the rise of Nazi Germany. The description made this one sound interesting as it promised a different view of the rise of the Nazi Party.  It is the first book by Benjamin Carter Hett that I have read.

The subtitle of the book "Hitler's Rise to Power and the Downfall of the Weimar Republic" provides a good overview of the subject of the book. The title is a little deceiving in that a quick glance could lead the casual observer to think that it is a book dealing with the events of modern day America.

This book is well written and researched and the author provides plenty of detail addressing some of the myths to the Nazi rise to power while also showing that many of the incidents were real. What I enjoyed most about this book was that the author clearly pointed out what was supposition that could not be factually proven where many other books present it as fact.

I recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the Nazi Party's rise to power in Germany and the circumstances that lead up to it.

This book is a superb look into the politics of the Weimar Republic and how those politics lead to the creation of the Third Reich. Mr. Hett dispels many of the myths of the period, such as the unity of 1914, the stab in the back of 1918, and the inevitability of the Nazi's rise to power. However, while dismissing this myths, he also shows how they became deeply ingrained in the German psyche, and how they influenced the politicians and people of the Weimar era. Ultimately, the failure of the Communists to come to terms with the Social Democrats combined with the conservative right's insistence on a government that excluded the left led to the Nazis ability to both seize the reins of power and exclude anyone else from the government.

My favorite portion of the book was the author's implicit dismissal of the "Sonderweg" school, or special path, to German history. He makes it very clear that similar movements and ideologies were rampant throughout Europe in the 1920s and 30s and that there was nothing particularly special about the Nazis rise to power.

If I would have to point out a flaw, some of the minor figures either get little introduction or get lost in the large cast that this book covers, but this does little to distract the reader from the overall course of events.

Ultimately, this book is a superb work on the politics, personalities, and course of events in the Weimar Republic's fall. Anyone even vaguely interested in the subject should give this book a look

As a historian I was very interested in the subject of this book. I expected with the premise of loosing democracy in Germany that there would be a general discussion of the history of Germany and the life of Adolph Hitler and it was. The problem was the wordiness of the discussion. The story just did not flow.