Books › They Thought They Were Free › Books like it
If you loved
Books like They Thought They Were Free
A chilling, penetrating look into the minds of ordinary people who became complicit in one of history's darkest regimes. These 12 books are the closest matches in mood, pace and themes, with what each one shares with They Thought They Were Free.
- chilling
- somber
- unsettling
- thought-provoking
- 01
The Origins of Totalitarianism
Hannah Arendt · 2003
A chilling, intellectually monumental dissection of how societies surrender to absolute darkness.
- 02
Ordinary Men
Christopher R. Browning · 1998
A chilling, methodical examination of how terrifyingly easy it is for average people to commit unspeakable atrocities.
- 03
The Nazi Doctors
Robert Jay Lifton · 1986
A chilling, methodical descent into the psychological mechanisms that allowed healers to become mass murderers.
- 04
The coming of the Third Reich
Richard J. Evans · 2003
A masterful, dread-inducing autopsy of a democracy dismantling itself.
- 05
The True Believer:Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
Eric Hoffer
A chillingly lucid dissection of the psychological hunger that drives ordinary people into the arms of fanatical movements.
- 06
Hitler-Mythos
Ian Kershaw · 1987
A chilling, meticulous dissection of how a modern society was seduced by a manufactured savior.
- 07
The Third Reich in power, 1933-1939
Richard J Evans · 2005
A monumental, dread-inducing masterclass in historical synthesis that meticulously charts a modern society's descent into totalitarian darkness.
- 08
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
William L. Shirer · 2003
A monumental, dread-soaked chronicle of a modern society's descent into absolute darkness, told with the gripping immediacy of a journalist who watched it happen.
- 09
Eichmann in Jerusalem
Hannah Arendt · 1963
A chilling, intellectually rigorous dissection of how ordinary bureaucracy facilitates unimaginable atrocities.
- 10
Berlin diary
William L. Shirer
A chilling, real-time chronicle of a society willingly surrendering to darkness, penned from the belly of the beast.
- 11
Into that darkness
Gitta Sereny · 1974
A chilling, methodical descent into the mind of a monster who believed himself to be an ordinary man.
- 12
The Machiavellians
James Burnham · 1962
A steady, intellectual exploration of historical power dynamics and the political mechanics of freedom.
