This brilliant new work by the author of the best-selling Five Days in London, May 1940 is an unparalleled drama of two great leaders confronting each other in June 1941. It describes Hitler and Stalin’s strange, calculating, and miscalculating relationship before the German invasion of Soviet Russia, with its gigantic (and unintended) consequences. John Lukacs questions many long-held beliefs; he suggests, for example, that among other things Hitler’s first purpose involved England: if Stalin’s Communist Russia were to be defeated, Hitler’s Third Reich would be well-nigh invincible, and the British and American peoples would be forced to rethink the war against Hitler.  The book offers penetrating insights and a new portrait of Hitler and Stalin, moved by their long-lasting inclinations. Yet among other things, Lukacs presents evidence that Hitler (rather than his generals) had moments of dark foreboding before the invasion. Stalin could not, because he wished not, believe that Hitler would choose the risk of a two-front war by attacking him; he was stunned and shocked and came close to a breakdown. But he recovered, grew into a statesman, and eventually became a prime victor of the Second World War. Such are the ironies of history; John Lukacs paints them with a shining narrative skill.

June 1941 Hitler & Stalin

History

John, Lukacs

Europe

Yale University Press

Since 1945 there have been over a hundred biographies of Hitler. What happens when so many people reinterpret the life of a single individual? Does Hitler emerge as a mythic anti-hero whose crimes and errors blur behind an aura of power and conquest? By making Hitler's biographers, rather than Hitler himself, the subject of inquiry, Lukacs reveals the contradictions that take us back to the true Hitler of history. By examining those like the controversial historian David Irving who have been involved in a rehabilitation of Hitler, Lukacs draws powerful conclusions about Hitler's differences from other monsters of history, such as Napoleon, Mussolini and Stalin. As the New York Times said of this book: 'Surprising, even shocking. Mr Lukacs arrives at his conclusions with painstaking, exhaustive logic that is hard to resist.'

The Hitler of History

Biographies & Memoirs

Weidenfeld&Nicolson

The days from May 24 to May 28, 1940 altered the course of the history of this century, as the members of the British War Cabinet debated whether to negotiate with Hitler or to continue what became known as the Second World War. The decisive importance of these five days is the focus of John Lukacs’s magisterial new book. Lukacs takes us hour by hour into the critical unfolding of events at 10 Downing Street, where Churchill and the members of his cabinet were painfully considering their war responsibilities. We see how the military disasters taking place on the Continent—particularly the plight of the nearly 400,000 British soldiers bottled up in Dunkirk—affected Churchill’s fragile political situation, for he had been prime minister only a fortnight and was regarded as impetuous and hotheaded even by many of his own party. Lukacs also investigates the mood of the British people, drawing on newspaper and Mass-Observation reports that show how the citizenry, though only partly informed about the dangers that faced them, nevertheless began to support Churchill’s determination to stand fast. Other historians have dealt with Churchill’s difficulties during this period, using the partial revelations of certain memoirs and private and public papers. But Lukacs is the first to convey the drama and importance of these days, and he does so in a compelling narrative that combines deep knowledge with high literary style.

Five Days in London: May 1940

At the End of an Age

At the End of an Age isa deeply informed and rewarding reflection on the nature of historical and scientific knowledge. Of extraordinary philosophical, religious, and historical scope, it is the product of a great historian’s lifetime of thought on the subject of his discipline and the human condition. While running counter to most of the accepted ideas and doctrines of our time, it offers a compelling framework for understanding history, science, and man’s capacity for self-knowledge. In this work, John Lukacs describes how we in the Western world have now been living through the ending of an entire historical age that began in Western Europe about five hundred years ago. Unlike people during the ending of the Middle Ages or the Roman empire, we can know where we are. But how and what is it that we know? In John Lukacs’s view, there is no science apart from scientists, and all of “Science,” including our view of the universe, is a human creation, imagined and defined by fallible human beings in a historical continuum. This radical and reactionary assertion—in its way a summa ofthe author’s thinking, expressed here and there in many of his previous twenty-odd books—leads to his fundamental assertion that, contrary to all existing cosmological doctrines and theories, it is this earth which is the very center of the universe—the only universe we know and can know.

World

An eminent historian offers his views on American democracy In A New Republic, one of America’s most respected historians offers a major statement on the nature of our political system and a critical look at the underpinnings of our society. American democracy, says John Lukacs, has been transformed from an exercise in individual freedom and opportunity to a bureaucratic system created by and for the dominance of special groups. His book, first published in 1984 as Outgrowing Democracy, is now reissued with a new introduction, in which Lukacs explains his methodology, and a new final chapter, which sums up Lukacs’s thoughts on American democracy today. Reviews of the earlier edition
“A rich, subtle, and often ingenious argument . . . an eloquent, provocative, but disturbing book.”—Edwin M. Yoder, Jr., Washington Post Book World
“Mr. Lukacs is an original and subtle historian, and [this book] is an engaging intellectual surprise party. . . . I was continuously enchanted by the play of his ideas—by the sharpness of his distinctions and the acuteness of his descriptions.”—Naomi Bliven, New Yorker 
“It has been a long time since Americans were offered such a provocative interpretation of their historical predicament. . . . We would be foolish not to examine it closely.”—Laurence Tool, Society

A New Republic: A History of the United States in the Twentieth Century

Americas

A master historian offers an eloquent and personal auto-history of his life and his ideas Twenty years ago, John Lukacs paused to set down the history of his own thoughts and beliefs in Confessions of an Original Sinner, an adroit blend of autobiography and personal philosophy. Now, in Last Rites, he continues and expands his reflections, this time integrating his conception of history and human knowledge with private memories of his wives and loves, and enhancing the book with footnotes from his idiosyncratic diaries. The resulting volume is fascinating and delightful—an auto-history by a passionate, authentic, brilliant, and witty man.
Lukacs begins with a concise rendering of a historical understanding of our world (essential reading for any historian), then follows with trenchant observations on his life in the United States, commentary on his native Hungary and the new meanings it took for him after 1989, and deeply personal portraits of his three wives, about whom he has not written before. He includes also a chapter on his formative memories of May and June 1940 and of Winston Churchill, a subject in some of Lukacs’s later studies. Last Rites is a richly layered summation combined with a set of extraordinary observations—an original book only John Lukacs could have written.
Praise for Confessions of an Original Sinner: “[Lukacs] is an often witty and always fascinating—even entertaining—writer.”—Washington Post

Last Rites

Religion & Spirituality

The Duel: Hitler vs. Churchill, 10 May - 31 July 1940

London: The Bodley Head

Historian John Lukacs's brilliant new book offers a provocative summing-up of the twentieth century, that age of iron which began with the guns of August in 1914 and ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. Distinguished by its author's masterly style and command of detail, The End of the Twentieth Century is a startling examination of where we are today, how we got here, and where we are headed. Centering on Europe, America, and the relations between the two, Lukacs argues that the major battle of our time has been waged between forms of nationalism rather than between communism and democracy; that the great watershed events have been the two world wars, not the Russian Revolution; and that the century's radical revolutionary was neither Lenin nor Chairman Mao but Adolf Hitler. The book puts into sharp perspective such events as the collapse of the Soviet Union, the civil war raging in what was Yugoslavia, and the resurgence of right-wing politics in a reunited Germany. Rather than the end of history, we are now witnessing the end of the modern era, and what awaits us is not the triumphal reign of liberal democracy but a troubled time that may echo much that is most questionable in our age. Informed by the precision and insight that have made Lukacs a leading historian, The End of the Twentieth Century is a reckoning both personal and professional - at once a brilliant rebuttal to Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and an outstanding, if sobering, work of historical mediation.

The End of the Twentieth Century and the End of the Modern Age

Ticknor & Fields

In this brilliant, strikingly original book, historian John Lukacs delves to the core of Adolf Hitler's life and mind by examining him through the lenses of his surprisingly diverse biographers. Since 1945 there have been more than one hundred biographies of Hitler, and countless other books on him and the Third Reich. What happens when so many people reinterpret the life of a single individual? Dangerously, the cumulative portrait that begins to emerge can suggest the face of a mythic antihero whose crimes and errors blur behind an aura of power and conquest. By reversing the process, by making Hitler's biographers--rather than Hitler himself--the subject of inquiry, Lukacs reveals the contradictions that take us back to the true Hitler of history. Like an attorney, Lukacs puts the biographies on trial. He gives a masterly account of all the major works and of the personalities, methods, and careers of the biographers (one cannot separate the historian from his history, particularly in this arena); he looks at what is still not known (and probably never will be) about Hitler; he considers various crucial aspects of the real Hitler; and he shows how different biographers have either advanced our understanding or gone off track. By singling out those who have been involved in, or co-opted into, an implicit "rehabilitation of Hitler," Lukacs draws powerful conclusions about Hitler's essential differences from other monsters of history, such as Napoleon, Mussolini, and Stalin, and--equally important--about Hitler's place in the history of this century and of the world.

KNOPF

The Duel: Struggle Between Churchill & Hitler

Leaders & Notable People

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Books by John, Lukacs

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by John, Lukacs. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

June 1941 Hitler & Stalin

The Hitler of History

Five Days in London: May 1940

At the End of an Age

A New Republic: A History of the United States in the Twentieth Century

Last Rites

The Duel: Hitler vs. Churchill, 10 May - 31 July 1940

The End of the Twentieth Century and the End of the Modern Age

The Hitler of History

The Duel: Struggle Between Churchill & Hitler