Bismarck: a life

by Steinberg, Jonathan

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Title Statements

Full title :Bismarck : a life / Jonathan Steinberg.

Summary

"Otto von Bismarck transformed Europe more completely than anybody in the nineteenth century--except for Napoleon. He unified--and indeed, created--the country at the center of two world wars that would transform the world. This riveting biography illuminates the life of 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 ..."--Jacket.

Edition Statements

Publication Date:2011

Publication Statements

Publisher(s):Oxford University Press
Place of Publication:Oxford
Language:eng
Publication Date:2011

The Physical Object

Description:x, 577 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : : illustrations ; : 25 cm

Edition Identifiers

ISBN:9780199782529, 0199782520, 9780199599011, 0199599017
oclc:ocn750376054
LC Classification:DD218
Dewey Decimal:943.08/3092

Introduction : Bismarck's sovereign self -- Bismarck : born Prussian and what that meant -- Bismarck : the mad Junker -- Bismarck represents himself, 1847-1851 -- Bismarck as diplomat, 1851-1862 -- Power -- "I have beaten them all! All!" -- The unification of Germany, 1866-1870 -- The decline begins : liberals and Catholics -- The guest house of the dead Jew -- Three Kaisers and Bismarck's fall from power -- Bismarck's legacy : blood and irony.

Subjects

Allemagne -- Politique et gouvernement … Biographies BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Presidents … Bismarck, Otto,, Fürst von Germany Germany -- Politics and government -- 1… Hommes d'État -- Biographies. -- Allema… Politics and government Statesmen Statesmen -- Biography. -- Germany