Norman Ridley is the author of five books. Reading Hitler’s Mind: The Intelligence Failure that led to WW2 was published in 2022.

I categorize this book as G. The book covers the period from the 1930s forward. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was preparing to deal with Hitler. The British leadership and military were stuck in their older thinking. There was also a concern as to the economic impact of beginning rearmament. What intelligence they had on the growth of Germany was often not believed.

Germany had been very successful in hiding its military growth. The UK also had significant financial ties to Germany. The British leaders were unwilling to confront Germany over events that were not directly affecting the UK. Many simply did not want to hear about things that challenged their point of view.

I enjoyed the 8.5 hours I spent reading this 179-page WWII history. This book was a challenge to read. The writing is very dry with many long rambling sentences. I do like the chosen cover art. I give this novel a rating of 3.5 (rounded up to a 4) out of 5.

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This book focuses heavily on British intelligence assessments of Adolf Hitler in the years leading up to the Second World War. Although well done, it was a little heavy going for me.

This book explains why England went with the policy of appeasement. England had economic reasons to not aggravate Germany. They wanted time to rearm themselves, to help balance out the power that Germany was fast becoming.. In order to make sure that they maintained the best policy to deal with Germany, they relied on a network of spies, They needed to make sure they had the most reliable information about the German war machine.. This is the story of how it all failed.