WRITER

William L. Shirer

1904 - 1993

William L. Shirer

William Lawrence Shirer (; February 23, 1904 – December 28, 1993) was an American journalist and war correspondent. He wrote The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, a history of Nazi Germany that has been read by many and cited in scholarly works for more than 50 years. Originally a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and the International News Service, Shirer was the first reporter hired by Edward R. Murrow for what became a CBS radio team of journalists known as "Murrow's Boys". Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of William L. Shirer has received more than 720,426 page views. His biography is available in 33 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 31 in 2019). William L. Shirer is the 2,849th most popular writer (down from 2,397th in 2019), the 3,607th most popular biography from United States (down from 3,098th in 2019) and the 310th most popular American Writer.

Memorability Metrics

720k
Page Views (PV)
53.37
Historical Popularity Index (HPI)
33
Languages Editions (L)
3.59
Effective Languages (L*)
4.04
Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

The rise and fall of the Third Reich

National Book Award Winner, Histoire, Derde Rijk

1960

Berlin diary

1938-1945, American Personal narratives, Diaries

Essential Historic Document. This is a most important historic document as it is the only known diary written by a professional journalist while on assignment in nazi Germany from 1933 to 1941. Prior to this, Bill Shirer was on assignment in Paris. There is no other Book I know that provides a better description of Germany's transformation from an essentially western democratic nation to a nazi gangster society. Many historians wonder 'how could this happen'? William Shirer answers this question. This is not an amateur diary and Shirer understood during the writing that it would become an important historic document. He was in the belly of the beast for all the important transformative years -1933 to 1941. He displayed great bravery by staying to the last minute. He was also a master at keeping the nazis from deporting him yet also reporting the factual news. —A juggling act that has never been matched. We owe much to William Shirer. Moreover, Shirer understood the Weimar, Prussian, German, nazi and European psyche better than any other American writer. Shirer was fluent in German, French, Swiss, and few more European languages. This is essential reading for a serious historian, anthropologist or sociologist.

1941

20th century journey

Biography, Journalists, American Novelists

1900

The collapse of the Third Republic

History, Histoire, Weltkrieg

1969

End of a Berlin diary

World War, 1939-1945, Peace, American Personal narratives

1947

Gandhi

Biography, Statesmen

1979

Page views of William L. Shirers by language

Over the past year William L. Shirer has had the most page views in the English wikipedia edition with 96,909 views, followed by Russian (11,850), and German (4,793). In terms of yearly growth of page views the top 3 wikpedia editions are Basque (92.91%), Ukrainian (55.76%), and Esperanto (50.16%)