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Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947
by: Christopher Clark

List Price: £12.99

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Used Price: £7.56
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Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780140293340
ISBN: 0140293345
Label: Penguin Books Ltd
Manufacturer: Penguin Books Ltd
Number Of Pages: 816
Publication Date: September 06, 2007
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Studio: Penguin Books Ltd
Sales Rank: 3794

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Editorial Review:

Daily Telegraph Books of the Year:
`A terrific book ... the definitive history of this much-maligned state'

Antonia Fraser, Guardian Books of the Year:
`Written with great clarity and vigour ... I was completely hooked'

Financial Times:
A magisterial history of Europe's only extinct power, nuanced, dispassionate and utterly gripping'

The New York Times:
`Exemplary ... an illuminating, profoundly satisfying work of history'

Sunday Telegraph:
`The best history of Prussia in any language'

Justin Cartwright, Spectator Books of the Year:
'...thorough, sensitive and well-written'

Book Description:
Prussia began as a medieval backwater, but transformed itself into a major European power and the force behind the creation of the German Empire, until it was finally abolished by the Allies after the Second World War. With great flair and authority, Christopher Clark describes Prussia's great battles, dynastic marriage and astonishing reversals of fortune, its brilliant and charismatic leaders from Frederick the Great to Bismarck, and the military machine and progressive, enlightened values upon which it was built.

Iron Kingdom is a compelling account of a country that played a pivotal role in Europe's fortunes and fundamentally shaped our world.

Synopsis:
'Of the "Great Powers" that dominated Europe from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, Prussia is the only one to have vanished ..."Iron Kingdom" is not just good: it is everything a history book ought to be ...The nemesis of Prussia has cast such a long shadow that German historians have tiptoed around the subject. Thus it was left to an Englishman to write what is surely the best history of Prussia in any language' - "Sunday Telegraph".

From the Back Cover:
`Fascinating ... masterly ... littered with intriguing detail and wry observation' Richard Overy, Daily Telegraph

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Comprehensive and thorough
Christopher Clark's history of Prussia is, to say the least, comprehensive. It's also interesting, covering as it does the whole period from 1600 until the end of World War II. Occasionally, it gets a little dry, but most of the time it is a well written portrayal of not just the royal court, but also of peasants, burgers, aristos, merchants and the emerging of the working class.

Although the book charts the rise and eventual fall of the Hohenzollern dynasty, it does so within the framework of the geopolitics of a state that was peculiarly vulnerable to attack for most of its existence. It also traces the two influences that defined the Prussian state - militarism and a progressive and enlightened liberalism.

Fascinating, ... Read More:

Rating:

- A good book - but not popular history
This is a well-researched book covering a fascinating period, but shouldn't be described as popular history. Many sections - indeed entire chapters - have little interest for the general reader. This is a shame, as the good parts are excellent. If you are tempted, be aware that you have 688 pages of compact type to negotiate!

Rating:

- Too much talk not enough action...
They say never trust a book by its cover and this book is a great case in point. The paperback oozes the military confidence and strangely warlike nature of Prussia. This promised to be a book that in equal measure dazzles you with military prowess and then the cultural achievements of Prussia all to end in the inferno of World War 2...but then you actually start reading it.

Everything here is well written, thoroughly researched and highly readable. I will give Christopher Clark 5 out of 5 for giving dry bureaucratic issues enough verve to get you to care. This book is one of those great titles that fills in the blanks around areas which most people know about- Frederick the Great WW1, WW2 (all be it discussed in a heart beat) etc are ... Read More:

Rating:

- More to Prussia than you thought!
Iron Kingdom is an extremely stimulating work. Thoughtful enquiry and taut analysis produce remarkable insight and conclusions. It is a work of causal relationships rather than events. The interactions of cultural, socio-economic, dynastic and constitutional tensions are clearly pointed within the shifting geographic patchwork of Brandenburg Prussia. The relative ebbs and flows of influences such as religion, enlightenment, militarism, political and national ideologies and the preferences of dominant personalities stand out, helping to explain why events took particular courses. So the emerging tragedy in post-1870 Imperial and Weimar Germany can be identified. The reader is given plenty to reflect on what might have been in Prussia.
All ... Read More:

Rating:

- The Rise and Downfall of a Great Book
I've given this work 4 stars with a few reservations.

On the plus side, it is a well-written, expertly researched masterpiece of modern history in a classic style (that is to say, it's honestly intellectual, scientifically rigorous and lacking in patronising gimmickery - hooray).

And the story of Prussia is very well told, in a weave that includes rulers, soldiers, politicians, philosophers, scientists, churchmen, and even the ordinary citizen, in buckets.

It is enormously informative as a result, and left me better educated, which should be the point, but...

Well, it's about those bizarre gaps that have irritated at least one other reviewer.

The first one occurs right at the start, when ... Read More:

Books : Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947