Original sentence: Klaus Epstein listed "four major failings": a crude understanding of German history; a lack of balance, leaving important gaps; no understanding of a modern totalitarian regime; and ignorance of current scholarship of the Nazi period.Shanahan in 1962 wrote that "Shirer's history of the Third Reich is woefully inadequate.Shirer's [writing] facility.. does not compensate for this book's essential weakness as history.Shirer's monumental narrative does not rise above the most commonplace level of understanding.The book also includes several speculations (clearly marked as such), such as a footnote that theorizes that Heinrich Müller, an SS chieftain, later went to serve in the NKVD, for which Shirer had no evidence at all.The inadequacies of Shirer's account could be dismissed...if his book had not found an enormous audience.While it is criticized for not being academic enough for purposes of academic research, the text does include extensive references and footnotes.William O