{"product_id":"on-hitlers-mein-kampf-the-poetics-of-national-socialism-9780262533331","title":"On Hitler's Mein Kampf: The Poetics of National Socialism","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn examination of the narrative strategies employed in the most dangerous book of the twentieth century and a reflection on totalitarian literature.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eHitler's \u003ci\u003eMein Kampf\u003c\/i\u003e was banned in Germany for almost seventy years, kept from being reprinted by the accidental copyright holder, the Bavarian Ministry of Finance. In December 2015, the first German edition of \u003ci\u003eMein Kampf\u003c\/i\u003e since 1946 appeared, with Hitler's text surrounded by scholarly commentary apparently meant to act as a kind of \u003ci\u003ecordon sanitaire\u003c\/i\u003e. And yet the dominant critical assessment (in Germany and elsewhere) of the most dangerous book of the twentieth century is that it is boring, unoriginal, jargon-laden, badly written, embarrassingly rabid, and altogether ludicrous. (Even in the 1920s, the consensus was that the author of such a book had no future in politics.) How did the unreadable \u003ci\u003eMein Kampf\u003c\/i\u003e manage to become so historically significant? In this book, German literary scholar Albrecht Koschorke attempts to explain the power of Hitler's book by examining its narrative strategies.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKoschorke argues that \u003ci\u003eMein Kampf\u003c\/i\u003e cannot be reduced to an ideological message directed to all readers. By examining the text and the signals that it sends, he shows that we can discover for whom Hitler strikes his propagandistic poses and who is excluded. Koschorke parses the borrowings from the right-wing press, the autobiographical details concocted to make political points, the attack on the Social Democrats that bleeds into an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, the contempt for science, and the conscious attempt to trigger outrage. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA close reading of National Socialism's definitive text, Koschorke concludes, can shed light on the dynamics of fanaticism. This lesson of \u003ci\u003eMein Kampf\u003c\/i\u003e still needs to be learned.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlbrecht Koschorke is Professor of German Literature and Literary Studies at the University of Konstanz. He was a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago from 2004 to 2009.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51254083813650,"sku":"9780262533331","price":27.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_0f50890f-c7aa-4d99-bdd1-22594b832703.jpg?v=1746306737","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/on-hitlers-mein-kampf-the-poetics-of-national-socialism-9780262533331","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}