Jonathan Wright writes:

In The Wages of Destruction, Adam Tooze emphasises Germany's relative economic weakness compared to that of the British Empire or the United States, making sense of the invasion of the Soviet Union 'as the last great land-grab in the long and bloody history of European colonialism' aimed at achieving for the German people the standard of living that Britons or Americans enjoyed . . . There are a number of brilliant passages in Tooze's book that dispel persistent myths – persistent despite previous criticism because they have an inherent plausibility.

(LRB 19 July 2007)

Penguin | paperback 800 pp. |ISBN: 9780141003481