It was started years and years and years ago. I'm not sure how long I've been doing it, but it goes up the day before. So Monday's SMW goes up Sunday, Tuesday's goes up after Monday's close, etc.

We used to have some very lively discussions, but it's been quiet . . . lately. Comments are always welcome!

Should have dumped everything yesterday.

I read this when it first came out and my mother growled the books were bigger than I was. Good thing she didn't look inside, it was horrifying reading for a junior high kid, worse even than books about the bubonic plague if only because it was so recent, my own family had lived through it, watching it all happen step by step.

Reading Shirer's books certainly left me of a deep and abiding mistrust of charm and charisma. Maybe that's why I've lived this long.

If you haven't read these books, do so. The subject matter is difficult but not the prose, you won't have to fight your way through. It came out 63 years ago and is still the definitive work on the Third Reich.

. . . . so I broke down and bought the Kindle edition. My copy was pretty battered anyway.

I was a little older than you the first time I read it, maybe 16 or so in the mid-60s. I think almost all of us who came of age in that era, whether we were technically "boomers" or not, had family members who had lived through it and shared at least some of their impressions. Much of my family was -- and still is -- Jewish, so this was always a part of my growing up.

What has always struck me about the lead-in to Hitler is that the economic impact of the first World War isn't covered as much as it should be.

since a lot of advanced uni history classes undoubtedly have it on the required reading list, as they should.

So much of that book has stuck with me since I read it 63 years ago.