Synopses & Reviews
Rather than a technical treatise based on equations, this study of the Hitler era in Germany from the standpoint of chaos-complexity theory is a narrative history based on a non-linear perspective. After defining basic chaos-complexity concepts and terms, like sensitivity to initial conditions and fractals, the book explores the Third Reich as a chaotic system; the clash between the image of Nazi technical prowess and the anti-modernism in National Socialist ideology; and German and Nazi military tactics and doctrine as ways of coping with the chaos of war and imposing it upon the enemy. Beaumont also looks at attempts to instill the arrogance and rage of the Nazi Party's brown-shirted storm troops into the
Wehrmacht through the National Socialist Leadership Officer program, the Nazi Commissars.
What were the intricate causal roots of the Endloesung or Final Solution? Why did the Allies refuse to mount a direct attack on the Nazi infrastructure responsible for the Holocaust? The study concludes with a discussion of paradoxes and implications, considering such questions as whether Nazism was a form of chaos, in the theoretical sense of its being a degree of order within apparently random turbulence, or a kind of recurring pathology, as well as whether social and historical processes are tractable to chaos-complexity-based analyses.
Review
In the end, Beaumont...provides sufficient analysis to answer the basic question of his thesis: "How much does looking at history through the lense of chaos-complexity theory offer new and useful perpesctives on how history is crafted by historians and how it actually works?" The answer one draws from this seminal work, that amalgamates science with history, is a thought-provoking and unique way of exploring the contraditions that make up the "tachycardia of horrors" like the Hitlerzeit.Military Heritage
Review
...Beaumont's study of the Hitler era contains many insightful gems on a wide range of topics conveyed in...delightful and often exciting prose.The Journal of Military History
Synopsis
Analyzes the chaos within the Third Reich, Nazi technical prowess versus anti-modernism, German military theory and the chaos of war, "Nazi Commissars," and various aspects of the Holocaust.
Synopsis
Rather than a technical treatise based on equations, this study of the Hitler era in Germany from the standpoint of chaos-complexity theory is a narrative history based on a non-linear perspective. After defining basic chaos-complexity concepts and terms, like "sensitivity to initial conditions" and "fractals," the book explores the Third Reich as a chaotic system; the clash between the image of Nazi technical prowess and the anti-modernism in National Socialist ideology; and German and Nazi military tactics and doctrine as ways of coping with the chaos of war and imposing it upon the enemy. Beaumont also looks at attempts to instill the arrogance and rage of the Nazi Party's brown-shirted storm troops into the Wehrmacht through the National Socialist Leadership Officer program, the "Nazi Commissars." What were the intricate causal roots of the Endloesung or Final Solution? Why did the Allies refuse to mount a direct attack on the Nazi infrastructure responsible for the Holocaust? The study concludes with a discussion of paradoxes and implications, considering such questions as whether Nazism was a form of chaos, in the theoretical sense of its being a degree of order within apparently random turbulence, or a kind of recurring pathology, as well as whether social and historical processes are tractable to chaos-complexity-based analyses.
About the Author
ROGER BEAUMONT is Professor of History at Texas A&M University.
Table of Contents
Preface
Chaos-Complexity and History: Perspectives and Paradoxes
The Third Reich as a Dialogue of Chaos and Order
Facades Over Chaos: The Mystique of Nazi Technology
Riding the Tide of Chaos: Auftragstaktik and the Law of the Situation
Chaos versus Chaos: The Nationalsocialistiche Fuehrungsoffizier (NSFO) Program
Grisly Fractals: Tracing the Holocaust's Roots and Branches
Chaos versus Chaos II: Using Military Power Against the Holocaust
Searching for Patterns in the Murk