"A grand narrative of the intertwining lives of Walter Benjamin, Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Ernst Cassirer, major philosophers whose ideas shaped the twentieth century The year is 1919. The horror of the First World War is still fresh for the protagonists of Time of the Magicians, each of whom finds himself at a crucial juncture. Benjamin, whose life is characterized by false starts and unfinished projects, is trying to flee his overbearing...

Traces Hitler's life from his childhood in Austria to his final days in Berlin, exploring how his promises of prosperity and power along with anti-Semitic rhetoric allowed him to lead the nation of Germany into World War II.

"In the summer of 1932, the Weimar Republic was on the verge of collapse. One in three Germans was unemployed. Violence was rampant. Hitler's National Socialists surged at the polls. Paul von Hindenburg, an aging war hero and avowed monarchist, was a reluctant president bound by oath to uphold the constitution. The November elections offered Hitler the prospect of a Reichstag majority and the path to political power. But instead, the Nazis lost two...

"As the great Austrian writer Stefan Zweig confided in his autobiography, written in exile, 'I have a pretty thorough knowledge of history, but never, to my recollection, has it produced such madness in such gigantic proportions.' He was referring to the situation in Germany in 1923. It was a 'year of lunacy,' defined by hyperinflation, a political system on the verge of collapse, and separatist movements that threatened Germany's territorial integrity....