The subsequent chapters on youth, elite resistance, German Jews and popular reactions to racialism are generally more satisfying, even if they do not add much to our existing knowledge. Stauffenberg and Beck are certainly given their due as resisters of Nazism, but not without a probing critique of their own ideologies. Similarly, Housden shows how General Beck's opposition to Hitler resulted from a disagreement over Hitler's tactics in annexing the Sudetenland, not Hitler's goals. Moltke is really the only one among the July 1944 conspirators to appear unambiguously opposed to Nazism on ideological grounds. However, as with the chapter on the churches, Housden contradicts himself.
Contradictory argumentation is to be found elsewhere.
We might point to Housden's intended audience when considering these problems. Certainly the book is written for the uninitiated, as the lack of jargon throughout the work illustrates. The problems mentioned above may not seriously detract from the value of the work when the reader has no prior knowledge, which is the author's underlying assumption. Housden achieves his primary goal of explaining why German resistance was so lacking, while simultaneously drawing our attention to the ambiguities faced by the historical subjects under review. Housden is to be commended for pointing both to the agency of these historical actors and to the outside restrictions they faced.