New from the author of Travellers in the Third Reich - the Sunday Times Top Three bestseller and Waterstones Book of the Month: a stunningly evocative portrait of Hitler's Germany through the people of a single village.
Oberstdorf is a beautiful village high up in the Bavarian Alps, a place where for hundreds of years ordinary people lived simple lives while history was made elsewhere. Yet even here, in the farthest corner of Germany, National Socialism sought to control not only people's lives but also their minds.
Drawing on archive material, letters, interviews and memoirs, A Village in the Third Reich is an extraordinarily intimate portrait of Germany under
Hitler, of the descent into totalitarianism and of the tragedies that befell all of those touched by Nazism. In its pages we meet the Jews who survived - and those who didn't; the Nazi mayor who tried to shield those persecuted by the regime; and a blind boy whose life was thought 'not worth living'.
It is a tale of conflicting loyalties and desires, of shattered dreams, despair and destruction - but one in which, ultimately, human resilience triumphs.
These are the stories of ordinary lives at the crossroads of history.
Praise for Travellers in the Third Reich:
'Compelling' Daily Telegraph
'Thought-provoking reading' Literary Review
'Fascinating' Spectator
'Absorbing and stimulating' Mail on Sunday
When British-born Elizabeth Blackwell earned her medical degree in America in 1849 there was an international outcry. Few at the time would have disagreed with the actress Fanny Kemble's remark-'What, trust a woman doctor-never!'
Yet by the time Dr. Blackwell died in 1910 there were hundreds of women practicing medicine on both sides of the Atlantic, thanks in no small part to her courage and determination. Using a treasure trove of primary sources, the book reveals how Elizabeth Blackwell's pioneering efforts helped to fundamentally change the status of women in the West.
The Excellent Doctor Blackwell tells a remarkable story, taking in the women's rights movement, the American Civil War, and Elizabeth's personal tragedy, with a fascinating cast of characters, from Abraham Lincoln to Florence Nightingale.