
The Wages of Destruction
The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy
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Narrated by:
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Adam Tooze
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Simon Vance
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By:
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Adam Tooze
About this listen
"Masterful.... [A] painstakingly researched, astonishingly erudite study.... Tooze has added his name to the roll call of top-class scholars of Nazism." (Financial Times)
An extraordinary mythology has grown up around the Third Reich that hovers over political and moral debate even today. Adam Tooze's controversial book challenges the conventional economic interpretations of that period to explore how Hitler's surprisingly prescient vision - ultimately hindered by Germany's limited resources and his own racial ideology - was to create a German super-state to dominate Europe and compete with what he saw as America's overwhelming power in a soon-to-be globalized world.
The Wages of Destruction is a chilling work of originality and tremendous scholarship that set off debate in Germany and will fundamentally change the way in which history views the Second World War.
This audiobook contains a downloadable PDF of tables and figures from the book.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2021 Adam Tooze (P)2021 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"One of the most important and original books to be published about the Third Reich in the past twenty years. A tour de force." (Niall Ferguson)
"Tooze has produced the most striking history of German strategy in the Second World War that we possess. This is an extraordinary achievement, and it places Adam Tooze in a very select company of historians indeed.... Tooze has given us a masterpiece which will be read, and admired; and it will stimulate others for a long time to come." (Nicholas Stargardt, History Today)
"It is among Adam Tooze's many virtues, in The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, that he can write about such matters with authority, explaining the technicalities of bombers and battleships. Hovering over his chronicle are two extraordinary questions: how Germany managed to last as long as it did before the collapse of 1945 and why, under Hitler, it thought it could achieve supremacy at all." (Norman Stone, The Wall Street Journal)
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A fresh mature perspective on the Spanish conquest
- By Chencheno111 on 03-19-22
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The First World War
- By: John Keegan
- Narrated by: James Langton
- Length: 20 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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The First World War created the modern world. A conflict of unprecedented ferocity, it abruptly ended the relative peace and prosperity of the Victorian era, unleashing such demons of the 20th century as mechanized warfare and mass death. It also helped to usher in the ideas that have shaped our times - modernism in the arts, new approaches to psychology and medicine, radical thoughts about economics and society - and in so doing shattered the faith in rationalism and liberalism that had prevailed in Europe since the Enlightenment.
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Best Military History of First World War
- By Stephen F (SPFJR) on 06-13-19
By: John Keegan
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The Order
- By: Kevin Flynn
- Narrated by: Gibson Frazier
- Length: 20 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Two courageous investigative journalists deliver an insider’s account of the “silent brotherhood”—the most dangerous radical-right hate group to surface since the Ku Klux Klan. They claim to be patriots, as American as apple pie, but they are this nation’s deadly brotherhood—hate groups that package their alienation against the federal government under such names as the Aryan Nation, the Order, and other white supremacist militias.
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Not very interesting
- By Anonymous User on 03-05-25
By: Kevin Flynn
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The Big Picture
- On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
- By: Sean Carroll
- Narrated by: Sean Carroll
- Length: 17 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Already internationally acclaimed for his elegant, lucid writing on the most challenging notions in modern physics, Sean Carroll is emerging as one of the greatest humanist thinkers of his generation as he brings his extraordinary intellect to bear not only on the Higgs boson and extra dimensions but now also on our deepest personal questions. Where are we? Who are we? Are our emotions, our beliefs, and our hopes and dreams ultimately meaningless out there in the void?
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ABSOLUTE MUST READ!
- By serine on 05-12-16
By: Sean Carroll
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Prisoner of Lies
- Jack Downey's Cold War
- By: Barry Werth
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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John (Jack) Downey, Jr., was a new Yale graduate in the post-World War II years who, like other Yale grads, was recruited by the young CIA. He joined the Agency and was sent to Japan in 1952, during the Korean War. In a violation of protocol, he took part in an air drop that failed and was captured over China. His sources on the ground had been compromised, and his identity was known. Although he first tried to deny who he was, he eventually admitted the truth. But government policy forbade ever acknowledging the identity of spies, no matter the consequences.
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The Jack I knew
- By Frederick P. Leaf on 12-10-24
By: Barry Werth
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Master of the Game
- Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy
- By: Martin Indyk
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 25 hrs
- Unabridged
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More than 20 years have elapsed since the United States last brokered a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians. In that time, three presidents have tried and failed. Martin Indyk - a former United States ambassador to Israel and special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in 2013 - has experienced these political frustrations and disappointments firsthand.
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Sad in its lack of creativity
- By Uri Pilichowski on 11-16-21
By: Martin Indyk
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Last Hope Island
- Britain, Occupied Europe, and the Brotherhood That Helped Turn the Tide of War
- By: Lynne Olson
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey, Kimberly Farr
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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A groundbreaking account of how Britain became the base of operations for the exiled leaders of Europe in their desperate struggle to reclaim their continent from Hitler, from the New York Times best-selling author of Citizens of London and Those Angry Days.
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Not What I Expected--More What I Needed to Know
- By DanD on 06-25-17
By: Lynne Olson
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Empires of the Sky
- Zeppelins, Airplanes, and Two Men's Epic Duel to Rule the World
- By: Alexander Rose
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 22 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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At the dawn of the 20th century, when human flight was still considered an impossibility, Germany’s Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin vied with the Wright Brothers to build the world’s first successful flying machine. As the Wrights labored to invent the airplane, Zeppelin fathered the remarkable airship, sparking a bitter rivalry between the two types of aircraft and their innovators that would last for decades, in the quest to control one of humanity’s most inspiring achievements. And it was the airship—not the airplane—that led the way.
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Actually, a One-Sided Story
- By JP on 08-03-20
By: Alexander Rose
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The Man Who Ran Washington
- The Life and Times of James A. Baker III
- By: Peter Baker, Susan Glasser
- Narrated by: Michael Quinlan
- Length: 26 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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For a quarter-century, from the end of Watergate to the aftermath of the Cold War, no Republican won the presidency without his help or ran the White House without his advice. James Addison Baker III was the indispensable man for four presidents because he understood better than anyone how to make Washington work at a time when America was shaping events around the world. The Man Who Ran Washington is a pause-resisting portrait of a power broker who influenced America's destiny for generations.
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We Need Baker Now More Than Ever
- By @Gazi2a on 01-08-21
By: Peter Baker, and others
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Without Precedent
- Chief Justice John Marshall and His Times
- By: Joel Richard Paul
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 17 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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No member of America's founding generation had a greater impact on the Constitution and the Supreme Court than John Marshall, and no one did more to preserve the delicate unity of the fledgling United States. From the nation's founding in 1776 and for the next 40 years, Marshall was at the center of every political battle. As Chief Justice of the United States - the longest-serving in history—he established the independence of the judiciary and the supremacy of the federal Constitution and courts.
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Scholarly and Accessible
- By Diana Black Kennedy on 03-01-18
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The Emperor of All Maladies
- A Biography of Cancer
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".
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Incredible
- By S.R.E. on 03-02-16
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Ascent to Power
- How Truman Emerged from Roosevelt's Shadow and Remade the World
- By: David L. Roll
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 20 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Spanning the years of transition, 1944 to 1948, Ascent to Power illuminates Truman’s struggles to emerge as president in his own right. Yet, from a relatively unknown Missouri senator to the most powerful man on Earth, Truman’s legacy transcends. With his come-from-behind campaign in the fall of 1948, his courageous civil rights advocacy, and his role in liberating millions from militarist governments and brutal occupations, Truman’s decisions during these pivotal years changed the course of the world in ways so significant we live with them today.
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Truman defeated Republican use of Dark Psychology
- By sunao mind☯️ heart ❤️ on 01-30-25
By: David L. Roll
Excellent and Unique View
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Excellent
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Great Read
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Superb
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Wish I had now about this book earlier.
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A fascinating backstory from a financial perspective highlighting how toxic nationalism combined with racism can be.
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Detailed
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I doubt anyone except history buffs an economic historians will really get good knowledge outta it thou.
be prepared for a lot of numbers an logistical figures.
Keeps you drawn in however with the back drop of the war.
extremely informative
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A scary and impressive eork
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Great book with excellent detail
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