When Hitler Took Cocaine: Fascinating Footnotes from History

by Giles Milton

In this marvellous collection of fascinating footnotes, Giles Milton delves into little-known stories from history. Covering everything from adventure, war, murder and slavery to espionage, including the stories of the real war horse, who killed Rasputin, Agatha Christie's greatest mystery and Hitler's English girlfriend, these tales deserve to be told.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

99 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 11, 2014

About the author

British writer and journalist Giles Milton was born in Buckinghamshire in 1966. He has contributed articles for most of the British national newspapers as well as many foreign publications, and specializes in the history of travel and exploration. In the course of his researches, he has traveled extensively in Europe, the Middle East, Japan and the Far East, and the Americas.

Knowledgeable, insatiably curious and entertaining, Milton locates history's most fascinating—and most overlooked—stories and brings them to life in his books.

He lives in London, where he is a member of the Hakluyt Society, which is dedicated to reprinting the works of explorers and adventurers in scholarly editions, some of which he uses in his research. He wrote most of Samurai William in the London Library, where he loves the "huge reading room, large Victorian desks and creaking armchairs". At home and while traveling, he is ever on the lookout for new untold stories. Apparently he began researching the life of Sir John Mandeville for his book The Riddle and the Knight after Mandeville’s book Travels "literally fell off the shelf of a Paris bookstore" in which he was browsing.

Copyright BookBrowse.com 2007

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was so excited to read this after hearing an interview with the author on the History Extra podcast. I preordered the book and waited over a year for it to arrive. Unfortunately, it is genuinely one of the worst written books I've come across. Painful to read, and most of the stories are common knowledge.

...The story about Hitler, though, is really interesting. I recommend listening to Milton tell it on the podcast instead of reading the book.

[Katarina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating!

Don't let the title guide you in your decision to read his book. Only the first chapter is about Hitler, and he really did take cocaine. Who knew?

There are lots of other fascinating stories that leave you thinking "huh...imagine that". Short and sweet, very interesting, highly recommended.

[Zaque Eyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly fun, exciting and full of history we rarely get to hear about. The chapters being only about 2-3 pages long makes this an excellent book to have at one’s side to get quick bit of history in for the day without having to read the whole thing to get the full story about a story.

Some of the stories seem unbelievable and makes me question their validity... This is not to say I believe the author to be making anything up, in fact I find him to be very truthful and thorough in his research, but I am very intrigued to research some of the stories further to get a better understanding for myself. For this I am very thankful to the author because rarely does a book spark my interest into seeking out further information about a particular subject to the extent that I am in such awe of the story I just have to know more about it.

This is on my must read list to anyone who asks me what a good book to read is.

[Monica Willyard Moen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book about little known events in history. The stories in the book or compulsively readable, and many of the people are ordinary people who just happened to be in an unusual circumstance or two. I am intrigued by one of the title stories, the one about Hitler. If he was taking cocaine and methamphetamine at the levels his medical doctor suggested in notebooks that were recently discovered, that could be a partial explanation for some of his irrational, erratic behavior during the final decade of his life. I can’t help but wonder how World War II might have gone if Hitler had not been under the influence of so many powerful drugs.

[Lien Dev · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book in Berlin and read it on the plane. Don't let the title misguide you! Giles Milton targets all kinds of different stories. Some of them were new, some of them are general knowledge. Looking back know I don't know if it was really worth spending €20 on, but I enjoyed it anyways. If you don't want to spend €20, I would recommend you to just listen to the podcast.

[Rebecca Matchette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this on a 3 hr.plane ride. Light but interesting. Some typos tho which drive me nuts in a book I paid for! Some brand new info and some other facts about things i thought I knew. Worth a read.

[pizza boy · Rating 4 out of 5]

מרתק ומעניין. היו סיפורים מדהימים והיו סיפורים בינוניים. בסופו של דבר, ממליץ מאוד

[Kathi Ruiz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Each short chapter covers a historic event that is overlooked or quirky. The writing was bland and I suspect that research was spotty or anecdotal. There were a few stories that piqued my interest, but not nearly enough to justify buying the book.

[Eric Dear · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting historical morsels. A short easy read.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some facts were fun, but most were common knowledge.

[Indah Threez Lestari · Rating 3 out of 5]

698 - 2016

[Cláudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

AMAZING!!!!

[Sandy]

Absolutely loved the short true stories