Hitlers "Mein Kampf" surges in e-book sales

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

What kind of recommendations am I going to get if I have that in my viewing history?

Forget the recommendations; you'll be getting a visit from men in black. You'll then be whisked away for a fun filled, all expenses paid vacation in sunny Cuba; where you'll be introduced to a variety of water sports.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

What kind of recommendations am I going to get if I have that in my viewing history?

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli ?

[Rizla]

I think they should include images from the death-camps in all publications of the book.

[samy2]

Also in Germany its legal to buy an antiquate version of the book. Also you can read the full text just over the internet:
http://archive.org/stream/Mein-Kampf...818S._djvu.txt

[Greg Anos]

I once listened to a fragment of a Hitler speech on a Cable channel documentary. My German is poor, so I didn't try to follow the speech. But what I did follow was the style and cadence. It was quite scary, because I recognized the style and cadence immediately.

It was a classic Fundamentalist Christian Sermon...(And believe me, I'd heard enough of them in my youth...)

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

It was a classic Fundamentalist Christian Sermon...(And believe me, I'd heard enough of them in my youth...)

Same general school as latin-american "caudillos" and populist politicians the world over.
I expect Julius Cesar had similar stylings.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

I once listened to a fragment of a Hitler speech on a Cable channel documentary. My German is poor, so I didn't try to follow the speech. But what I did follow was the style and cadence. It was quite scary, because I recognized the style and cadence immediately.

It was a classic Fundamentalist Christian Sermon...(And believe me, I'd heard enough of them in my youth...)

[bgalbrecht]

Mein Kampf is in the public domain for life+50 countries, including Canada and Australia (since it went PD before they switched to life+70). The 1939 translation to English was by James Murphy, who died in 1946, so it's also in the public domain in Canada and Australia.

[Jane Oldaker]

I'm intrigued by the speculation on why read it so I'm gonna stick my oar in too. I posit that it is essential for academics to have some understanding of it. In fact I would suggest that it behooves much of humanity to have a minimal, stress minimal understanding of it. And I'm going to have to speculate that most Neo-Nazis who possess it haven't read it or much of anything else for that matter.

[Barty]

Life's too short. Plus I've seen the movie.

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by Jane Oldaker

I'm intrigued by the speculation on why read it so I'm gonna stick my oar in too. I posit that it is essential for academics to have some understanding of it. In fact I would suggest that it behooves much of humanity to have a minimal, stress minimal understanding of it. And I'm going to have to speculate that most Neo-Nazis who possess it haven't read it or much of anything else for that matter.

In general, it's a pretty good idea to know what your ideological opponents think so that you at least know what you're objecting to. If all you know about Hitler's philosophy is "hates Jews", then you're likely to miss similarities to fascism in the modern political sphere.

[CommonReader]

Originally Posted by samy2

Also in Germany its legal to buy an antiquate version of the book. Also you can read the full text just over the internet:
http://archive.org/stream/Mein-Kampf...818S._djvu.txt

Exactly, and as about a gazillion of copies have been printed between 1933 and 1945 it was never difficult to get, quite apart from the copies that are all over the internet. It's a rather pointless assertion of the nanny state to prevent annotated copies from getting printed.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by samy2

Also in Germany its legal to buy an antiquate version of the book. Also you can read the full text just over the internet:
http://archive.org/stream/Mein-Kampf...818S._djvu.txt

And here:
click

[Andrew H.]

When I was in grad school we were required to read chapter 11, which is called something like "Volk und Rasse" - it's the bit where Hitler explains his views on race and Aryans and Jews, etc. I think it's well worth reading to understand where he's coming from, but also to see how he makes his points. It's not the kind of emotional rant you might expect if you've heard some of his speeches; it has a reasonable, scientific tone and appears to construct a rational argument. It's all pseudo-science, of course, along with some mistaken history - but you have to know that to understand why it's wrong. If you read it with no knowledge of who wrote it, it would seem dated, but it wouldn't seem like the ravings of a mad man. And if you read it in 1929, it probably wouldn't even have seemed dated, given the widespread belief in eugenics that was present at that time.

But that's kind of the true message to take away from reading it - that the people to worry about aren't the ones whose destructive proclivities are obvious; the people to worry about are going to be those who come across as educated and reasonable.

[Lemurion]

I read it in high school back in the late 70's.