Robert Gellately
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Today we’re pleased to feature an interview with Robert Gellately of Florida State University. Professor Gellately is a distinguished and widely read historian of Germany, with a particular focus on the Nazi period. He’s the author of a number of path-breaking books, including The Politics of Economic Despair: Shopkeepers and German Politics, 1890-1914 (Sage Publications, 1974), The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933-1945 (Oxford University Press, 1990), and Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany, 1933-1945 (Oxford University Press, 2001). Today we’ll be discussing his most recent work Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007). Richard Pipes says of the book: “A most impressive account of the tragedies that befell the world during the first half of the twentieth century. Not the least merit of the book is that, unlike most historians who treat Lenin as a well-meaning idealist, he places him along side Stalin and Hitler as a founder of modern barbarism.” I couldn’t agree more.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m a big fan of your podcast but this was a disappointing interview as I did not get a good sense of what HIS book is about. Instead you spent an awful lot of time talking about other books you had read. I realize it must be difficult to keep quiet when someone is talking about a field you know well, but please let your guest talk about their book!
Could I ask you some questions about the Rwanda Genocide?