Personality and Power
Play sample
  • Published: 5 December 2023
  • ISBN: 9780141998237
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 512
  • RRP: $29.99

Personality and Power

Builders and Destroyers of Modern Europe

Formats & editions
Paperback
5 Dec 2023
Hardback
5 Oct 2022
EBook
29 Sep 2022
Audiobook
29 Sep 2022
Buy from…
Amazon Booktopia Dymocks QBD Readings Your Bookstore Abbeys Boomerang Find local retailers Find local retailers Collins Fishpond Gleebooks Harry Hartog Kinokuniya Robinsons The Nile Mighty Ape

The acclaimed historian explores how far individual leaders can alter the course of history

The modern era saw the emergence of individuals who had command over a terrifying array of instruments of control, persuasion and death. Whole societies were re-shaped and wars fought, often with a merciless contempt for the most basic norms. At the summit of these societies were leaders whose personalities had somehow given them the ability to do whatever they wished.

Ian Kershaw's new book is a compelling, lucid and challenging attempt to understand these rulers, whether operating on the widest stage (Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini) or with a more national impact (Tito, Franco). What was it about these leaders and the times they lived in that allowed them such untrammelled and murderous power? And what brought that era to an end? In a contrasting group of profiles, from Churchill to de Gaulle, Adenauer to Gorbachev, and Thatcher to Kohl, Kershaw uses his exceptional skills to think through how other, strikingly different figures wielded power.
  • Published: 5 December 2023
  • ISBN: 9780141998237
  • Imprint: Penguin Press
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 512
  • RRP: $29.99
Categories:

About the author

Ian Kershaw

Ian Kershaw is Professor of Modern history at the University of Sheffield. For services to history he was given the German award of the Federal Cross of Merit in 1994. he was knighted in 2002 and awarded the Norton Medlicott Medal by the Historical Association in 2004.
He was historical advisor to three BBC series: The Nazis: A Warning From History, War of the Century and Auschwitz.
His most recent books are Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris and 1936-1945: Nemesis, which received the Wolfson Literary Award for History and the Bruno Kreisky Prize in Austria for the Political Book of the Year, and was joint winner of the inaugural British Academy Book Prize; Making Friends with hitler: Lord Londonberry and Britain's Road to War, which won the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography in 2005; and, most recently, Fateful Choices: Ten Decisions that Changed the World, 1940-1941.

Also by Ian Kershaw

Roller-Coaster
To Hell and Back
Luck of the Devil
Making Friends with Hitler
The End
Hitler
Fateful Choices
See all

Praise for Personality and Power

Illuminating ... an insightful series of essays about 12 exceptional leaders who stood at the centre of Europe's 20th century.

Philip Stephens, Financial Times

Few historians are better qualified to answer these questions than Ian Kershaw ... As always, he proves a splendid miniaturist, expertly sketching personalities and philosophies in a few coolly judged lines ... If Kershaw's book has a contemporary lesson, it is that societies are probably happiest and healthiest when leaders matter least.

Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times

Sir Ian Kershaw, the great (in both senses) biographer of Adolf Hitler, makes an important contribution to this debate ... persuasive and nuanced pen-portraits ... well-researched, well-written and thought-provoking.

Andrew Roberts, Daily Telegraph

Lucid portraits of the leaders who shaped Europe's 20th century ... There is much to be admired in Kershaw's cogent and astute analysis.

Orlando Figes, The Observer
penguin pop image
penguin pop image