(1) "Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust", Richard Rhodes, 2002.
"Rhodes gives full weight, for the first time, to the Einsatzgruppen’s role in the Holocaust. These 'special task forces,' organized by Heinrich Himmler to follow the German army as it advanced into eastern Poland and Russia, were the agents of the first phase of the Final Solution. They murdered more than 1.5 million men, women, and children between 1941 and 1943."
(2) "Hitler’s People: The Faces of the Third Reich", Richard J. Evans, 2024.
"Through a connected set of biographical portraits of key Nazi figures that follows power as it radiated out from Hitler to the inner and outer circles of the regime’s leadership, one of our greatest historians answers the enduring question, how does a society come to carry out a program of unspeakable evil?"
As someone with two degrees (B.A. English, followed after I caught on a bit, by a B.S. in physics and computer science with minors in math and chemistry), I can say that I would not take that route again. Mostly a waste.
"What you can accomplish in the real world will rapidly become more valuable than a credential such as a conventional college degree. The credentialing gatekeepers are protecting an 'asset'--the college diploma--that is largely a phantom asset for the vast majority of students."
"This is the story of one of the greatest innovators of our time. He had the ability to envision new products consumers didn't even know they wanted. He would go on to build a multi-billion dollar technology company fueled by innovation. He was domineering, he drove his employees hard, and he rarely listened to other people's opinions. He was known to wear the same clothes every day. He was obsessed by design, and his products were beautiful, sleek and iconic. He was not only a great innovator, he was a great marketer. He would turn new product demonstrations into dramatic showcases that attracted endless publicity. He believed that a successful company should be composed of managers and dreamers, and it was the responsibility of the former to protect the latter. He wasn't afraid to fail. But his board of directors wasn't as forgiving, and in a palace coup, eventually ousted him from the company he founded. His name was Edwin Land. He invented the instant camera and founded the Polaroid Corporation. And he was Steve Jobs' hero."
reply