Originally published in 1968, this was the first time that a comprehensive selection of documents on Germany in the Age of Bismarck had been made available to students and other readers in the English language. The documents were chosen to illuminate not only Bismarck's own personality and policies but also the nature of the problems he faced and the reactions of his contemporaries. The substantial introduction serves as a general background and guide to the documents, which are in the form of letters, essays, polemics, speeches, and memoirs, produced in the period itself. They allow the student to obtain a genuine first-hand insight into the workings of minds and institutions in Germany during three of the most eventful decades of her history.

Analyzes the achievements of Frederick the Great and Otto von Bismarck, and explains how Bismarck, a Prussion prime minister, was able to unite all of the German states into a single empire nearly one hundred years after the death of Frederick the Great.

This riveting, New York Times bestselling biography illuminates the life of Otto von Bismarck, the statesman who unified Germany but who also embodied everything brutal and ruthless about Prussian culture. Jonathan Steinberg draws heavily on contemporary writings, allowing Bismarck's friends and foes to tell the story. What rises from these pages is a complex giant of a man: a hypochondriac with the constitution of an ox, a brutal tyrant who could easily shed tears, a convert to an extreme form of evangelical Protestantism who secularized schools and introduced civil divorce. Bismarck may have been in sheer ability the most intelligent man to direct a great state in modern times. His brilliance and insight dazzled his contemporaries. But all agreed there was also something demonic, diabolical, overwhelming, beyond human attributes, in Bismarck's personality. He was a kind of malign genius who, behind the various postures, concealed an ice-cold contempt for his fellow human beings and a drive to control and rule them. As one contemporary noted: "the Bismarck regime was a constant orgy of scorn and abuse of mankind, collectively and individually." In this comprehensive and expansive biography--a brilliant study in power--Jonathan Steinberg brings Bismarck to life, revealing the stark contrast between the "Iron Chancellor's" unmatched political skills and his profoundly flawed human character.

Examines the life and career of Otto von Bismark.

In this vivid fifty-year history of Germany from 1871-1918—which inspired events that forever changed the European continent—here is the story of the Second Reich from its violent beginnings and rise to power to its calamitous defeat in the First World War. Before 1871, Germany was not yet nation but simply an idea. Its founder, Otto von Bismarck, had a formidable task at hand. How would he bring thirty-nine individual states under the yoke of a single Kaiser? How would he convince proud Prussians, Bavarians, and Rhinelanders to become Germans? Once united, could the young European nation wield enough power to rival the empires of Britain and France—all without destroying itself in the process? In this unique study of five decades that changed the course of modern history, Katja Hoyer tells the story of the German Empire from its violent beginnings to its calamitous defeat in the First World War. This often startling narrative is a dramatic tale of national self-discovery, social upheaval, and realpolitik that ended, as it started, in blood and iron.

A new account of the life and policies of the first German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, this concise historical-biography reflects, for the first time in English, the historical shift in emphasis from the traditional political-economic approach to the more complex social-economic one of post--World War II scholarship. Since the middle of the 1950s, much new material on Bismarck and nine­teenth-century Germany and new inter­pretations of existing material have been published in Germany, Great Britain, and the United States. Pro­fessor George O. Kent's brilliant syn­thesis, drawing on this mass of mate­rial, examines changes in emphasis in post--World War II scholarship. The book, particularly in the historiograph­ical notes and bibliographical essay, provides the serious student with an invaluable guide to the intricacies of recent Bismarckian scholarship. For the general reader, the main text presents a picture of the man, the issues, and the age in the light of modern scholarship. The major shift in historical emphasis described in this new account is the importance scholars give to the period 1877-79, the years of change from free trade to protectionism, rather than to 1870-71 the founding of the Reich. Bismarck's political machinations, par­ticularly his willingness to explore the possibilities of a coup d'état, are more fully discussed here than in any other book.

Originally published in 1968, this was the first time that a comprehensive selection of documents on Germany in the Age of Bismarck had been made available to students and other readers in the English language. The documents were chosen to illuminate not only Bismarck’s own personality and policies but also the nature of the problems he faced and the reactions of his contemporaries. The substantial introduction serves as a general background and guide to the documents, which are in the form of letters, essays, polemics, speeches, and memoirs, produced in the period itself. They allow the student to obtain a genuine first-hand insight into the workings of minds and institutions in Germany during three of the most eventful decades of her history.

Bismarck was arguably the most important figure in 19th-century European history after 1815. In this biography, Edgar Feuchtwanger reassesses Bismarck's significance as a historical figure.

First published in Germany to popular and critical acclaim, this is a unique portrait of the life and work of Theodor Fontane, the greatest German novelist of his age, as well as a major poet and theater critic and much loved travel writer. Gordon A. Craig, one of the foremost scholars of German history, interpolates a cohesive historical biography of Fontane with his own reflections on the art, culture, and politics of Fontane's world. The ideas and impressions of Fontane and Craig echo one another throughout the book in compelling and fascinating ways. Fontane's travel accounts of Scotland and Prussia are enriched by Craig's discussion of Germany's increasingly national vision of itself and the world at the time of unification. Similarly, Craig's mastery of German military history dovetails remarkably well with Fontane's reportage on Germany's wars with Denmark, Austria, and France. Interesting are Fontane's ruminations over his great contemporary Otto von Bismarck, whom he revered as founder of the Reich but whose policies he feared would in the end be self-defeating. Although Fontane's Wanderings through the Mark Brandenburg and his novels are more widely read in Germany today than they were in his own time, and although his masterpiece Effi Briest was the basis for a famous Fassbinder film, Fontane remains little known in the English-speaking world. Theodor Fontane is the ideal introduction to this major European writer, a master of social analysis and one of the great letter writers of his age.