I finally finished today the 1400 page World War II tome, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. The book took me nearly three months to read, but it was absolutely worth it. The book documents the rise of National Socialism (Nazism) from Hiter’s birth to his death and the fall of Nazi Germany. The writing of William Shirer is fantastic and really evokes a sense of well thought out and well edited writing that I haven’t read in a while. He make the 50-odd-year span of history incredibly interesting and at no point while reading it was I bored or disinterested in the least. Further, the copious amount of footnotes full of anecdotal details and the references to primary material add even more color and context to the read. Very highly recommended.