Bismarck and His Times

Bismarck and His Times PDF Author: George O. Kent
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 9780809308590
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
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.

Bismarck and His Times

Bismarck and His Times PDF Author: George O. Kent
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 9780809308590
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Bismarck

Bismarck PDF Author: Jonathan Steinberg
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199782660
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 592

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Book Description
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.

Bismarck

Bismarck PDF Author: Volker Ullrich
Publisher: Haus Publishing
ISBN: 1910376248
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
Otto von Bismarck (1815–98) has gone down in history as the Iron Chancellor, a reactionary and militarist whose 1871 unification of Germany set Europe down the path of disaster to World War I. But as Volker Ullrich shows in this new edition of his accessible biography, the real Bismarck was far more complicated than the stereotype. A leading historian of nineteenth- and twentieth-century history, Ullrich demonstrates that the “Founder of the Reich” was in fact an opponent of liberal German nationalism. After the wars of 1866 and 1870, Bismarck spent the rest of his career working to preserve peace in Europe and protect the empire he had created. Despite his reputation as an enemy of socialism, he introduced comprehensive health and unemployment insurance for German workers. Far from being a “man of iron and blood,” Bismarck was in fact a complex statesman who was concerned with maintaining stability and harmony far beyond Germany’s newly unified borders. Comprehensive and balanced, Bismarck shows us the post-reunification value of looking anew at this monumental figure’s role in European history.

Blood and Iron

Blood and Iron PDF Author: Katja Hoyer
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1643138383
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
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.

Bismarck and Germany

Bismarck and Germany PDF Author: D.G. Williamson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317862481
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
Bismarck’s role in the unification and consolidation of Germany is central to any understanding of Germany's development as a nation and its consequent role as aggressor in two world wars. This study provides students with a concise, up-to-date and analytical account of Bismarck's role in modern German history. Williamson guides readers through the complex events leading to the defeats of Austria and France in 1866 and 1870 and the subsequent creation of a united Germany in January 1871. He then explores the domestic and foreign problems Bismarck faced up to 1890 in consolidating unification.

The Loss of the Bismarck

The Loss of the Bismarck PDF Author: Graham Rhys-Jones
Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
The battleship Bismarck, flagship of the German Fleet Commander and one of the most powerful warships in the world, was sunk by the British on her maiden voyage in 1941. The author examines the flawed German strategy, the 1,750-mile chase at sea, and the Bismarck's final hours, when, surrounded by a dozen British ships, she fought to the last, taking 2,000 men down with her.

Bismarck

Bismarck PDF Author: Iain Ballantyne
Publisher: Ipso Books
ISBN: 1504059158
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132

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Book Description
With extensive eyewitness accounts, the author of Killing the Bismarck vividly reconstructs the day British soldiers sank the infamous Nazi battleship. May 26, 1941. After a desperate chase lasting three days and more than seventeen hundred miles, Britain’s Home Fleet would finally close in on the world’s most powerful battleship, the very ship that sank the Royal Navy’s battlecruiser HMS Hood. The German battleship Bismarck was literally in a class by itself, being one of two newly-designed Bismarck-class ships in the German fleet. But it would soon face, and ultimately lose, a brutal fight to the finish involving more than five thousand men of the Royal Navy and twenty-six thousand men of Hitler’s Kriegsmarine. Historian Iain Ballantyne spent years conducting interviews with surviving veterans who had been present on that fateful day. Published here for the first time, alongside a compelling narrative of the final twenty-four hours of the mission to sink the Bismarck, are transcripts of those interviews, offering the unique eyewitness accounts of Royal Navy sailors who participated in one of the most significant sea battles of World War II.

Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck

Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck PDF Author: Thomas Nipperdey
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400864305
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 769

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Book Description
Thomas Nipperdey offers readers insights into the history and the culture of German nationalism, bringing to light much-needed information on the immediate prenational period of transition. A subject of passionate debates, the beginnings of German nationalism here receive a thorough-going exploration, from the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire to Bismarck's division of the German-speaking world into three parts: an enlarged Prussian state north of the Main, an isolated Austria-Hungary in the south, and a group of Catholic states in between. This altering of power structures, Nipperdey maintains, was the crucial action on which the future of the German state hinged. He traces the failure of German liberalism amidst the rise of nationalism, turning it from a story of inevitable catastrophe toward a series of episodes filled with contingency and choice. The book opens with the seismic effect of Napoleon on the German ancien-régime. Napoleon's modernizing hegemony is shown to have led to the gradual emergence of a civil society based on the liberal bourgeoisie. Nipperdey examines the fate of this society from the revolutions of 1848-49 through the rise of Bismarck. Into this story he weaves insights concerning family life, working conditions, agriculture, industrialization, and demography as well as religion, learning, and the arts. Originally published in 1996. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Bismarck

Bismarck PDF Author: Michael Tamelander
Publisher: Casemate
ISBN: 1935149822
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
The author of Blitzkrieg covers one of the most dramatic events of the Second World War in an “outstanding book about naval warfare” (World War II History). When the German battleship Bismarck—a masterpiece of engineering, well-armored with a main artillery of eight 15-inch guns—left the port of Gotenhafen for her first operation on the night of May 18, 1941, the British battlecruiser Hood and the new battleship Prince of Wales were ordered to find her quickly, as several large convoys were heading for Britain. On May 24, Bismarck was found off the coast of Greenland, but the ensuing battle was disastrous for the British. The Hood was totally destroyed within minutes, with only three crewmen surviving, and Prince of Wales was badly damaged. The chase resumed until the German behemoth was finally caught, this time by four British capital ships supported by torpedo-bombers from the carrier Ark Royal. The icy North Atlantic roiled from the crash of shellfire and bursting explosions until finally the Bismarck collapsed, sending nearly two thousand German sailors to a watery grave. Tamelander and Zetterling’s work rests on stories from survivors and the latest historical discoveries. The book starts with a thorough account of maritime developments from 1871 up to the era of the giant battleship, and ends with a vivid account, hour by hour, of the dramatic and fateful hunt for the mighty Bismarck, Nazi Germany’s last hope to pose a powerful surface threat to Allied convoys. “Exciting story-telling . . . recreat[es] the thrill of the hunt.” —International Journal of Maritime History “[An] epic sea chase and its vivid, human details.” —World War II

Bismarck

Bismarck PDF Author: E. J. Feuchtwanger
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415216142
Category : Germany
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
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.