all of the requirements are listed in the document. you must pick from a book in the long list about nazi germany and write a 3.5 page critique paper about it, again, specifically following the requirements.

A book review is NOT a book report in which you summarize the content of the book.  A book review IS a critical assessment of the contributions that the author of the reviewed work has made to the field of scholarship. To do this, you must critically evaluate the author's intentions and purpose, thesis, contentions, and methods of analysis. The majority of your book review will be devoted to demonstrating that you understand the author's argument and how well the author made the case for her argument. You must read and think before your begin writing your review.

According to historian Jacques Barzun, "The beginning, we know is important. The first [paragraph] should present an idea of interest to the readers . . . . If your first words are "This book . . ." they will not be able to distinguish your review from twenty others, and they will be entitled to conclude that you have not expended much thought on enlisting their attention. The opening statement takes the readers from where they presumably stand in point of knowledge and brings them to the book under review. The briefest possible description of its aim, scope, and place in the world therefore follows the baited opening sentence and completes the first paragraph. [Jacques Barzun, The Modern Researcher, 4th ed. (New York, 1985), 290.]

Your book review should include the following:

· A bibliographic entry that identifies the author and full title, the author and full title, and the imprint (city, publisher, date of publication), your name, and course information

· A thesis that explains the significance of this work to the history of Nazi Germany framed by a strong introduction

· A brief summary of:

· Who is the author?

· What are the qualifications of the author?

· What are the author’s reasons for writing the work?

· A description of the overall scope of the work

· A brief summary of the content and structure of the work

· An explanation of the types of sources the author used. 

· An assessment of the quality of the evidence the author uses to support her/his arguments

· An assessment/evaluation of the author’s thesis, arguments and conclusions [hint: this is not simply a summary of what you liked or disliked about the book, but explanations, analysis, and implications about your assessment of the work]

· An analysis of the significance and importance of the author’s conclusions to our understanding of themes of the lesson

· An assessment of what contribution the author makes to our understanding into the broader scope of the history of Nazi Germany.

· If you are reviewing a memoir or an eyewitness account, address as many of the above questions as are applicable. A work of fiction must be summarized (plot, characters, setting) and analyzed for its historical value.

Remember, the above set of criteria for your review is not a laundry list of points that you simply jot down answers to and submit, but a guide to help you organize your thoughts into words.  A book review, like all other historical contributions, is a crafted analysis that tells a story about the contributions and significance of the work to our understanding of the history of Nazi Germany.

Choose one of the titles below to review: 

Bessel, Richard. 1993. Germany after the First World War. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Gay, Peter. 1968. Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider. New York: Harper & Row.

Chickering, Roger. 1998. Imperial Germany and the Great War, 1914-1918. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

Chickering, Roger. 1984. We men who feel most German: a cultural study of the Pan-German League, 1886-1914. Boston: Allen & Unwin.

Fallada, Hans. 1933. Little Man, What Now? Transl. Eric Sutton. New York: Simon and Schuster. (A semi-autobiographical novel about Weimar Germany and the environment that allowed Hitler to come to power.)

Feldman, Gerald D. 1993. The Great Disorder: Politics, Economics, and Society in the German Inflation, 1914-1924. New York: Oxford University Press.

Junger, Ernst. 2004. Storm of Steel. Transl. Michael Hofmann. New York: Penguin Books. (Not as well known as Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, but equally powerful personal story about a soldiers experiences in the trenches of World War I.

Lutes, Jason. 2001 Berlin (Book I: City of Stones and Book II: City of Smoke). New York: Drawn and Quarterly. A graphic novel (comic book) about the turmoil of the last years of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazis.

Nichols, A. P. 1968. Weimar and the Rise of Hitler. A concise, well-written survey of Weimar's troubled political history.

Remarque, Erich Maria. All Quiet on the Western Front.  There are several editions available. This German writer's celebrated WWI anti-war novel was the basis for at least two movie versions; the Nazis hated its "war is hell" theme.

Retallack, James N. 1996. Germany in the age of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan.

Röhl, John C. G. 2004. Wilhelm II: the Kaiser's personal monarchy, 1888-1900. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Seligmann, Matthew S., and Roderick R. McLean. 2000. Germany from Reich to Republic, 1871-1918: politics, hierarchy and elites. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Weitz, Eric D. 2007. Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.