ABSTRACT
Ian Kershaw was born in 1943 in the town of Oldham, near Manchester, England. He went on to study medieval history at university, first at Liverpool, then as a doctoral student at Oxford. He then started researching social history in Nazi Germany. Coincidentally, a lectureship in modern history had just been advertised at Manchester; Kershaw applied, and got the job. Using research from his time in Munich, Kershaw published two books, including The "Hitler Myth": Image and Reality in the Third Reich. The "Hitler Myth" is a vital resource for anyone working on the political or social history of the Third Reich. The "Hitler Myth" can also point toward wider political trends. Leadership cults developed in many other countries across the world during the twentieth century. This form of propaganda swiftly became a global phenomenon, under fascist and communist regimes alike.
