What do you think?
Rate this book
Hitler, a Study in Tyranny - Completely Revised Edition
A Study in Tyranny by Alan Bullock (1962-05-04) [Hardcover] [Jan 01, 1836] Alan Bullock
Paperback
Published January 1, 1962
About the author
Alan Bullock
84 books47 followersDr. Bullock, later Sir Alan and eventually a life peer, diagnosed the malignancies of dictatorship and tyranny that plagued 20th-century Europe. He twinned two such dictators in one of his later studies, ''Hitler and Stalin, Parallel Lives'' (1991, Knopf).
He was the last of three brilliant Oxford historians whose views influenced thought in the English-speaking world and beyond, even when their own views diverged. The others were A. J. P. Taylor and Hugh Trevor-Roper who, for instance, offered a more nuanced interpretation of Hitler than did Dr. Bullock.
While Dr. Bullock originally portrayed Hitler as a diabolical charlatan and cynical opportunist without convictions, Trevor-Roper saw him as an ideologue and demagogue convinced of his own political philosophy. It was a distinction crucial to the understanding of Hitler's initial successes as a politician, statesman and military strategist, and Dr. Bullock reflected it in his double study of Hitler and Stalin.
Nonetheless, his seminal Hitler book of 1952, published a mere seven years after Hitler's end, remained a scholarly classic and stayed in print, in one form or another, for more than half a century.
Dr. Bullock also compiled a three-volume biography of a Labor leader and former foreign secretary who helped shape postwar Britain, ''The Life and Times of Ernest Bevin.'' It took from 1960 to 1983 to complete.
He wrote or edited several other notable books on 20th-century European history, which also appeared in other languages.
Alan Louis Charles Bullock was born in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, the son of a gardener turned Unitarian preacher. He went to Oxford on a scholarship to study literature and modern history, which became his career, though he earned a doctor of literature degree in 1969.
Severe asthma ruled out military service in World War II; instead he spent it working for the European Service of the BBC as a political and diplomatic correspondent. After the war, he returned to Oxford.
Concentrating on the Third Reich of Hitler, he pored over the minutes of the Nuremberg trials. At the suggestion of the scholar A. L. Rowse, at Oxford, and the publisher Odhams, he produced the first comprehensive life of Hitler.
He also became increasingly active in academic affairs as dean and tutor of New College at Oxford. In 1960 he helped establish St. Catherine's, the university's first new college for graduate and undergraduate students in the 20th century.
He was vice chancellor of Oxford from 1969 to 1973. Over the years his outside interests included the chairmanship of the Tate Gallery (1973-1980). He was a former director of The Observer, joined the Social Democratic Party in 1981 and continued to lecture until 1997.
Dr. Bullock was knighted in 1972. Four years later, the Labor government of Harold Wilson made him a life peer; he took the title Baron Bullock of Leafield in the County of Oxfordshire.
He was the last of three brilliant Oxford historians whose views influenced thought in the English-speaking world and beyond, even when their own views diverged. The others were A. J. P. Taylor and Hugh Trevor-Roper who, for instance, offered a more nuanced interpretation of Hitler than did Dr. Bullock.
While Dr. Bullock originally portrayed Hitler as a diabolical charlatan and cynical opportunist without convictions, Trevor-Roper saw him as an ideologue and demagogue convinced of his own political philosophy. It was a distinction crucial to the understanding of Hitler's initial successes as a politician, statesman and military strategist, and Dr. Bullock reflected it in his double study of Hitler and Stalin.
Nonetheless, his seminal Hitler book of 1952, published a mere seven years after Hitler's end, remained a scholarly classic and stayed in print, in one form or another, for more than half a century.
Dr. Bullock also compiled a three-volume biography of a Labor leader and former foreign secretary who helped shape postwar Britain, ''The Life and Times of Ernest Bevin.'' It took from 1960 to 1983 to complete.
He wrote or edited several other notable books on 20th-century European history, which also appeared in other languages.
Alan Louis Charles Bullock was born in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, the son of a gardener turned Unitarian preacher. He went to Oxford on a scholarship to study literature and modern history, which became his career, though he earned a doctor of literature degree in 1969.
Severe asthma ruled out military service in World War II; instead he spent it working for the European Service of the BBC as a political and diplomatic correspondent. After the war, he returned to Oxford.
Concentrating on the Third Reich of Hitler, he pored over the minutes of the Nuremberg trials. At the suggestion of the scholar A. L. Rowse, at Oxford, and the publisher Odhams, he produced the first comprehensive life of Hitler.
He also became increasingly active in academic affairs as dean and tutor of New College at Oxford. In 1960 he helped establish St. Catherine's, the university's first new college for graduate and undergraduate students in the 20th century.
He was vice chancellor of Oxford from 1969 to 1973. Over the years his outside interests included the chairmanship of the Tate Gallery (1973-1980). He was a former director of The Observer, joined the Social Democratic Party in 1981 and continued to lecture until 1997.
Dr. Bullock was knighted in 1972. Four years later, the Labor government of Harold Wilson made him a life peer; he took the title Baron Bullock of Leafield in the County of Oxfordshire.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 7, 2026
I've wanted to read this particular biography since I took a WWII class in high school, largely because I was curious about the man Hitler as a personality. I wanted to understand what motivated a man to live the life he lived, and I do not subscribe to the view that he was simply an inhuman monster. I realize that this biography is outdated and that Bullock lacked access to many materials that only became available after he had already written the book, but there is something to be said for examining the first biography to be written after his death.
However, biography is not one of my favorite forms of writing and I stalled out at the end of the first part (around page 200). I set it aside for a while, and in the meantime I finally read Mortimer Adler. Upon finishing How to Read a Book I thought it might be fruitful to apply Adler's method to this volume. It turned out that the Preface answered my question: Hitler's personality was nonexistent and most of the book is simply a recounting of who he met with, where he went, and what actions he took in pursuit of power. Bullock indicated that he considered Hitler the man in a single chapter at the midpoint. So I decided to read the only part of this book that actually interests me and skim the rest. And that was good, because it turns out that the more you dig into Hitler the man, the less there is.
In a nutshell:
Hitler's whole philosophy and motivation was the pursuit of and maintenance of power through violence and intimidation. He had no original ideas - everything he ever said were recycled, worn-out, century-old Romanticism. As Bullock says, his only originality was the startling literalism and totality with which he set out to implement those ideas. Nevertheless, despite the man's deep and now-obvious character flaws, he possessed a rare political brilliance and understood the means to exercise it. To discount his gifts because he was so vile a human being is to fail to understand the phenomenon of the Third Reich and his domination of it.
However, biography is not one of my favorite forms of writing and I stalled out at the end of the first part (around page 200). I set it aside for a while, and in the meantime I finally read Mortimer Adler. Upon finishing How to Read a Book I thought it might be fruitful to apply Adler's method to this volume. It turned out that the Preface answered my question: Hitler's personality was nonexistent and most of the book is simply a recounting of who he met with, where he went, and what actions he took in pursuit of power. Bullock indicated that he considered Hitler the man in a single chapter at the midpoint. So I decided to read the only part of this book that actually interests me and skim the rest. And that was good, because it turns out that the more you dig into Hitler the man, the less there is.
In a nutshell:
Hitler's whole philosophy and motivation was the pursuit of and maintenance of power through violence and intimidation. He had no original ideas - everything he ever said were recycled, worn-out, century-old Romanticism. As Bullock says, his only originality was the startling literalism and totality with which he set out to implement those ideas. Nevertheless, despite the man's deep and now-obvious character flaws, he possessed a rare political brilliance and understood the means to exercise it. To discount his gifts because he was so vile a human being is to fail to understand the phenomenon of the Third Reich and his domination of it.
August 7, 2026
Alan Bullock's book about Hitler is cute, and it's queer.
Bullock quotes Nazi frenemy Otto Strasser, who says, "Adolf Hitler enters a hall. He sniffs the air. For a minute, he gropes, feels his way, senses the atmosphere. Suddenly, he bursts forth. His words go like an arrow to their target. He touches each private wound on the raw, liberating the mass unconscious, expressing its innermost aspirations, telling it what it most wants to hear."
Pause...
Bullock quotes Nazi frenemy Otto Strasser, who says, "Adolf Hitler enters a hall. He sniffs the air. For a minute, he gropes, feels his way, senses the atmosphere. Suddenly, he bursts forth. His words go like an arrow to their target. He touches each private wound on the raw, liberating the mass unconscious, expressing its innermost aspirations, telling it what it most wants to hear."
Pause...
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews