Hitler’s Books

In a new book, Timothy Ryback examines Adolf Hitler’s private library. He asserts that books were important in shaping the Führer’s life, and looks for insights in the books’ margin notes. Michael McDonald writes that Rybeck’s claims of books’ importance to Hitler is plausible, but that he “was more of a mountebank than an intellectual, the kind who used books as props to advertise his genius to others.”