Paul Ham è uno storico specializzato in conflitti, guerre e politica del XX secolo. Porta la sua competenza in ambito accademico, insegnando saggistica narrativa e inglese presso prestigiose istituzioni francesi. Le sue opere approfondiscono momenti cruciali della storia moderna, concentrandosi in particolare sugli eventi bellici e sulle loro più ampie ramificazioni politiche e sociali. La scrittura di Ham è caratterizzata da un'approfondita ricerca storica e dalla capacità di presentare argomenti complessi in uno stile narrativo avvincente, che risuona con un vasto pubblico.
Hiroshima Nagasaki tells the story of the tragedy through the eyes of the survivors, from the twelve-year-olds forced to work in war factories to the wives and children who faced it alone. Through their harrowing personal testimonies, we are reminded that these were ordinary people, given no warning and no chance to escape the horror.--Résumé de l'éditeur.
When Adolf Hitler went to war in 1914, he was just 25 years old. It was a time he would later call the 'most stupendous experience of my life'. That war ended with Hitler in a hospital bed, temporarily blinded by mustard gas. The world that he opened his newly healed eyes on was new and it was terrible: Germany had been defeated, the Kaiser had fled and the army had been resolutely humbled. Hitler never accepted these facts. Out of his fury rose a white-hot hatred, an unquenchable thirst for revenge against the 'criminals' who had signed the armistice, against the socialists who he accused of stabbing the army in the back and, most violently, against the Jews – a direct threat to the master race of his imagination – on whose shoulders he would pile all of Germany's woes. But this was not all about the war; the seeds of that hatred lay in Hitler’s youth. By peeling back the layers of Hitler's childhood, his war record and his early political career, Paul Ham's Young Hitler: The Making of the Führer seeks the man behind the myth. How did the defining years of Hitler’s life affect his rise to power? More broadly, Paul Ham seeks to answer the question: Was Hitler a freak accident? Or was he an extreme example of a recurring type of demagogue, who will do and say anything to seize power; who thrives on chaos; and who personifies, in his words and in his actions, the darkest prejudices of humankind?
Paul Ham se ve své knize snaží odhalit osobnost člověka opředeného mýty. Popisuje Hitlerovo dětství, zážitky z války a počátky jeho politické kariéry a hledá odpověď na otázku, jaký měly všechny tyto události vliv na Hitlerovu cestu k moci. Když šel Adolf Hitler v roce 1914 do války, bylo mu 25 let. Později tyto časy popsal jako „nejúžasnější období svého života“. Když první světová válka skončila, ležel Hitler v nemocnici dočasně oslepený yperitem. Jakmile se mu navrátil zrak, naskytl se mu strašlivý pohled: Německo bylo poraženo, císař uprchl a armáda byla v katastrofálním stavu. Hitler se s těmito skutečnostmi nikdy nesmířil. Přepadla ho obrovská nenávist a neukojitelná touha pomstít se „zločincům“, kteří podepsali příměří. Socialistům, jež vinil z toho, že vrazili armádě nůž do zad. A především Židům, kteří podle něj představovali bezprostřední hrozbu pro nadřazenou rasu a byli hlavní příčinou veškerého utrpení Německa…