The history behind this text, I believe, is more interesting than the actual reading. Hitler, a lot like the Marquis De Sade, wrote the first volume of this text while he was imprisoned. Instead of writing about his fantasies, however, he wrote about his “struggles”. Hitler was imprisoned for high treason after a trial in February of 1924, he remained in prison for a total of 5 years, where he wrote all of volume one of his story. The success of this text when it was first published was not very high. When Hitler’s popularity grew though, this became almost like a bible for Nazis and their followers. It grew to so much fame that it actually became a required reading in Germany. The first volume that was written in 1925 mainly touches on topics like propaganda and his general hatred for any race other than the “aryan” race. The second published volume in 1926/1927, I feel, is way more concerning than the first. He goes from his racist and anti-semitic beliefs he had to outlining his whole idea to create a better Germany by getting rid of said races. Although I have not read the second volume, reading around it shocks me because of the true follow through that Hitler had in mind while putting this text together. Mein Kampf was banned in post-world war II Germany, for obvious reasons, and has been condemned in days since then. In 2016, the text was actually granted public domain, meaning that it was fair game to whoever, and that caused many different places to post heavily annotated versions of the writing. Overall, I think that having this assigned to read is very interesting because of the history behind the text. The actual reading was not very fun because of the style of writing (poor) but seeing Hitler’s book and the outcome of is something I would’ve never done on my own time.