Professor Clark has set up a new category of Australian historians of great merit whose surname is Clark who have come to grips with German civilisation. He achieved this by being the second historian from this country with this surname to gain a great level of proficiency in this area. Like the first Clark he has propounded cogent and able to be understood by the public ideas about European civilisation. No historian who cannot be understood by the wider public is a great historian. That is why there are so few of them about.

I had the misfortune to quote the great Otto Hintze in my thesis undertaken at UNSW. Hence I was then immediately exiled to the furthest reaches of the footpath and the never ending roundelay of the five minute wait for the bus to escape out of there, rather than be able to argue for anything at all while there other than keep quiet. As to invoke anyone who advocates going through the archives and proffering generalisations based on this, was then, and remains now, the greatest sin. A deep original sin that anyone wishing to become a successful local worker of anti-narrative must not do.

Professor Clark has been at Cambridge for well over generation now and so can generalise at will from his acutely precise and massively documented work done in the archives, as he has done in dozens of articles, chapters, conference papers and books, at his leisure, from this genuinely scholarly vantage point. And for 40 years he has not ever had to get than damn bus back to the City from Kensington, or the bus he may be somewhat more familiar with, from Darlington or Glebe back to the City (from his and my original Alma Mater, Sydney University.)

Has he missed the bus with his cultural defence of Prussia?

When Otto Hintze’s wife committed suicide to avoid being sent to a Camp she embodied the highest virtues of Prussian civilisation Clark talks about. Of course, those sending her to the camp did not.
He is right about this.

Rwanda is more than the nightmare it became and was and to some extent remains. Great Britain was more than just the sum-total of the forces and interplay that deliberately sat out the Great Famine in Ireland seeing it as an expedient form of another Great Clearance. The United States is more than Jackson’s and many other betrayals of the Cherokee of Georgia. We, Australians are not just the total of the dynamics within which we have immured the local First Nations for the last two hundred years or so.

However, I cannot judge that whatever else is this greater Prussia was not also behind Hitler and the whole thing. Say, from the time of Von Papen’s silly attempts to hope that the Nazi’s would turn out to be more easily able to be outmanoeuvred than Mussolini’s movement. Or even in the five or so years before the early 1930’s, the earlier period- when Hitler was promoted like a sort of protean prototype of our own Dinky di Aussie version, Pauline Hanson. That is let into the drawings rooms and power centres of the powerful and rich to help the ’right people” regain power or whatever.

Professor Clark’s Prussia has it paws all over Hitler. Just as this greater Prussia also has had its paws all over the obtaining of the train that they then filled with Bolsheviks and then sent across the Steppes to sow the seeds of confusion and implosion in Imperial Russia.

In that sense these Prussians perpetrated not just one but two of the greatest evils in human history and this needs to be held against them in an historical sense.

There is also in the Professors Prussia the things that became the living nightmare of East Germany from 1945 till its collapse. As much as there is this Prussia in the Stein Hardenberg reforms and in Frederick the Great and nose flutes and chats with Goethe etc/.,

However, the Professor’s case remains cogent that Prussia was more than these things too, but I am afraid to say it was these things too.
I look today at Angela Merkel and see ho she grew up in the almost absurd world of left-wing ideology-soaked nightmare and the imploded, evil and stupefying structurally violent meta prison camp called ‘the GDR. Yet she is the current Chancellor of a united Germany. Yet she deliberately defied the right wing and let in another million or more Syrians and others just to show that what Clark calls this greater idea of Prussia has some substance attached to it.

It is good and bad and evil, as all complex evolving civilisations are capable of sickening degeneration into barbarity almost at a moment’s notice, but remain able to be resurrected from this almost as quickly.
But we must remain on guard.

In the 1970's my late father in law was asked to have lunch by the Commander of a US nuclear submarine. I think they were both in France at that time. The Commander revealed he had been asked to tour a secret French nuclear arms facility. Where he was told about the four or five lines of defence of the force de frappe missile. Some could go to Moscow, others surprisingly, maybe into the Atlantic and beyond etc., (especially via the French fleet).

Also, while there he noticed a group of short-range missiles whose range was less than 80 -100 kilometres beyond the Rhine. All of which all had small nuclear devices atop them. The Commander determined that these were set -positioned, in such way as to fly due West from France and go onto Western German targets alone!. He asked, “These missiles can only go 50-80- kilometres or so at east, of the Rhine, all of them would only find targets in Western Germany is this so?”

The French he said shrugged their shoulders and said “Oui”

All of us must do more than merely state that Prussia and Germany has a wonderful civilised heritage it also has other potentialities …

Professor Clark is providing a valid and valuable and distinguished reminder of this heritage.

Despite this, from what I can see of his wider work he is also acutely aware of the evils that lurk behind the European capacity for mimesis of both good and evil. This applies to the Prussia he writes of as much as any other of the other key informing major cultures of Europe.

Incridible book. Somebody can say there are 3 books in one. So dense it is.

Interesting overview of the political and cultural evolution of Prussia: from Catholic to mostly Lutheran, from Brandenburg to the single biggest part of future Germany, from Duchy to Kingdom.

The state was never meant to become a main player in the Holy Roman Empire: having no fertile arable land, surrounded by strong empires (Sweden, Poland, Russia,...). But as Elector its rulers increased its political power and inherited huge pieces of land (Rhineland, East Prussia, etc.). Most strikingly, Frederick the Great seized Silesia against a overwhelming coalition including Russia, France and Austria. Next to that, Bismarck took care of the icing on the cake: the unification of Germany in which supremacy of Prussia was obvious.

Do not expect Clark to go too deep into the Liberation War in 1813, the reign of Bismarck or the evolution of WW I/ WW II. But the author sheds some interesting light on the reason of the Kulturkampf from a German national perspective and the role of Prussia during the Weimar era and post-1933.

“In the beginning there was only Brandenburg, a territory encompassing some 40,000 square kilometers and centered on the city of Berlin. This was the heartland of the state that would later be known as Prussia. Situated in the midst of the dreary plain that stretches from the Netherlands to northern Poland, the Brandenburg countryside has rarely attracted visitors. It possesses no distinctive landmarks. The rivers that cross it are sluggish meandering streams that lack the grandeur of the Rhine or Danube. Monotonous forests of birch and fir covered much of its surface. The topographer Nicolaus Leuthinger, author of an early description of Brandenburg, wrote in 1598 of a ‘flat land, wooded and for the most part swamp.’ ‘Sand,’ flatness, ‘bogs’ and ‘uncultivated areas’ were recurring topoi in all the early accounts, even the most panegyric…”
-tChristopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947

When I think of Prussia, certain impressions spring immediately to mind, some positive, others decidedly not: monocled generals planning their next conquest; well-trained soldiers marching in jack-booted lockstep; overfed Junkers on their vast feudal estates; and a centralized civil bureaucracy striving for coldblooded efficiency. Mostly, though, I am thinking of an army with a state, rather than a state with an army.

By the end of Iron Kingdom, Christopher Clark’s enormous history of Prussia, my original conception had not changed much. Though Clark adds context, texture, and nuance, there is no changing the fact that Prussia’s martial aptitude created her, allowed her to expand, and ultimately unmade her in the wake of World War II. Whatever Prussia’s contribution to education, thought, and culture, there is no denying its aggressive militarism.

Iron Kingdom is a massive book boldly striving for comprehensiveness without skimping on detail. It begins in the early 17th century, when Prussia was a relatively weak duchy enclosed within indefensible borders. During the Thirty Years’ War, various armies marched unhindered across Prussian lands, leaving desolation in their wake. Things began to change with the reign of Frederick William I. The so-called “Great Elector” started Prussia down the path to greatness – and ruin – by focusing on military prowess. He created a modern army with consistent uniforms, standardized weaponry, and an emphasis on drill.

The very early going of Iron Kingdom was a bit slow, especially since I haven’t spent a lot of time studying this time period. The story really starts to snap into place in 1701, when the Great Elector’s son, Frederick III (the non-diversity of names makes things confusing) crowned himself king. From that point forward, the Kingdom of Prussia became a major European power player, especially under the famed Frederick the Great (though as Clark points out, this particular Frederick’s wartime won-loss record was not exactly flawless).

For unavoidable reasons, much of Iron Kingdom is devoted to a seemingly-endless series of wars and revolutions. To be fair, much of this can be laid at the feet of Napoleon Bonaparte, who kept Europe in an uproar for over a decade. Prussian power reached its apotheosis under Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck, who helped guide the kingdom through three wars of “unification,” culminating in the defeat of France in 1871, and the creation of the German Empire. From there, Prussia was more or less subsumed into greater Germany, to well-known consequences.

Despite all the bloody clashes, Iron Kingdom is far more than a military history. Clark really does try to encompass every aspect, taking on a bit more than can be comfortably digested. His biographical sketches are illuminating and – as often happens when dealing with authoritarian kings – occasionally terrifying (Frederick William I’s behavior towards the young Frederick the Great springs to mind in this regard). Clark also spends a lot of time covering diplomacy, religion, philosophy, and the arts. Throughout, Clark tries to highlight the more liberal elements, pushing back against the standard Prussian image. For instance, he argues that the peasants toiling on the famed Junker estates were far better off than typically imagined. Having never thought deeply about such questions, I can’t say that Clark convinced me one way or the other. Nevertheless, I appreciate his willingness to share his opinions, as it demonstrates his own immersion into this material.

Trying to coherently structure such a sprawling tale is a bit of a challenge, one that Clark does not perfectly manage. Though it advances in rough chronological order, much of Iron Kingdom is centered around themes, so that there is a lot of skipping around in time. By way of example, near the end of the book, just after World War II has ended, Clark circles all the way back for another look at Bismarck. It can get a bit dizzying.

Iron Kingdom is a bit like a buffet in which you are compelled to eat everything, whether you want to or not. I found certain topics – such as Bismarck’s long-game – to be entirely absorbing. Other areas, such as the theological schisms within Protestantism, held less interest for me. That’s to be expected when you are served up such a smorgasbord.

Ultimately, I think Iron Kingdom might be too ambitious, trying to fit queen-sized sheets onto a king-sized bed. Clark might have been better served by concluding with the end of the Franco-Prussian War. Everything after that – World War I, the rise of Nazism, and World War II – feels rushed. Moreover, as I mentioned above, after 1871, Prussia and Germany become hard to separate, and the parsing of the two gets a bit tedious. It is also in these sections that Clark strains most visibly to defend Prussia, trying to find some daylight between it and Hitler, even as the Nazis embraced “Prussianism” in a death-grip.

Of course, being overambitious is much better than the alternative. At the risk of overusing food-related metaphors – I should probably stop writing and just get lunch – I prefer having too much on my plate rather than too little (though my doctor begs to disagree). The prodigious length of Iron Kingdom is greatly eased by Clark’s engaging, often witty prose, and by his self-evident passion for this subject matter. While the very nature of Iron Kingdom – with its constantly shifting focus – gives it an uneven pacing, it is otherwise everything that I can ask for in a nonfiction volume. It is deeply researched, broad in scope, and – not for nothing – quite entertaining to read.

As the Wolfson Prize is a very reliable barometer, it came as no surprise to me that the Iron Kingdom was an extremely good book. I enjoyed reading it greatly and came away feeling that I had acquired a much better understanding of Germany history because of it.

North Americans have a great deal of trouble understanding European history because the European nations are amalgams of older nations and multiple ethnic groups. North American history was a roll-out that began on the Atlantic Ocean. The Anglo-Saxon settlers advance steadily towards the Pacific Ocean taking with them a common set of social customs and laws. Once a critical mass was achieved in a given geographical region, the area entered the union as a state. Thus America is what has always been. It has simply expanded and increased its population.


In contrast, the modern European nations are all very new having been created in the 19th century. Creating the European nations meant forcing multiple linguistic groups and multiple smaller states into a large unit. To do so usually required destroying old political elites and compelling populations with different languages and religious groups to live together. The North American reader gets lost reading a history of Germany or Italy that begins in the 18th Century because neither state existed before 1871 in anything resembling the modern form.

Clark solves the problem for the North American reader by taking Prussia and following its roll-out from the East to the West as it grew from a small state until it was able to unify all of the German speaking people north of the alps with the creation of the German Empire under the Prussian Kaiser in 1871. Clark's approach means that he is able to show how the Prussian King ruled, shared power with the nobility and allowed his kingdom to transform itself into a constitutional monarchy without being burdened by the need to describe the similar processes in the many German states, principalities, free cities and bishop's jurisdictions that also existed in the geographic region occupied by German Reich that initiated WWI. In other words instead of a great false parallels and superficial comparisons the reader gets a complete view of the events in what became the dominant state in the German empire.

In addition to this very solid political history, Clark does an outstanding job describing the interplay between the Jewish Reformed, Lutheran, and Catholic Churches as well as the factions within each of these larger religious groups.

Clark makes no effort on the other hand to write an economic history of Prussia. Similarly, he does not cover either labour history or the growth of socialist political parties. Thus the strikes and rebellions which brought down the Hohenzollern dynasty in 1919 come as unexplained bolts out of the blue. However, he would have needed to write two more 800 page books to adequately deal with these two aspects of Prussian history. Clarke, above all, should be praised for how brilliantly he examined the topics that he selected.

Pretty good, with two notable issues.
1) The Franco-Prussian war is so obliquely covered that it almost feels like it is completely skipped.
2) Colonialism and later the First World War, really 1890-1918, are covered at a dead sprint. I understand that those events are not inherently "Prussian" buuuut they definitely deserve more coverage.

So much detail. I ended up reread a large part of the book.

Christopher Clark's "Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947" stands as a formidable contribution to the historiography of Prussia, offering a comprehensive examination of the political, social, and cultural evolution of this influential state over nearly three centuries. Originally published in 2006, Clark's work has established itself as a seminal text in the study of Central European history.

One of the notable strengths of the book is Clark's meticulous attention to detail, evident in his exploration of Prussian state-building and its impact on the broader European context. The author adeptly navigates through the complex political landscape of the Holy Roman Empire, tracing Prussia's emergence from a patchwork of territories to a formidable power under the guidance of visionary leaders such as Frederick William the Great Elector.

The nuanced analysis extends to Prussia's military prowess, a central element in its identity. Clark skillfully examines the military reforms of Frederick the Great, situating them within the broader European military revolution. The strategic insights and diplomatic maneuvering of key Prussian figures are presented with clarity, providing readers with a deep understanding of the geopolitical intricacies of the time.

Clark also demonstrates a keen awareness of the social and cultural dimensions of Prussian history. His examination of the impact of Protestantism, the development of an efficient bureaucracy, and the evolving role of the Junker class enriches the narrative. Moreover, the author carefully explores the tensions between militarism and enlightenment in Prussian society, revealing the complexities that defined its intellectual landscape.

While "Iron Kingdom" is a tour de force in many respects, some critics may argue that the book occasionally leans towards a Eurocentric perspective, with limited exploration of Prussia's interactions with non-European regions. Additionally, Clark's detailed approach might be challenging for readers seeking a more concise overview of Prussian history.

Christopher Clark's "Iron Kingdom" is an exemplary work of historical scholarship that encapsulates the rise and fall of Prussia in a rich and multifaceted narrative. Its rigorous research, nuanced analysis, and comprehensive coverage make it an essential resource for scholars, students, and enthusiasts of European history seeking a profound understanding of the complexities inherent in the Prussian experience.

GPT

Excellent history of Prussia dispelling the many myths about the "how Germany would have been different, were to be united by another of its states"

Brightly written, dense and full of details that help to understand what and how happened during the evolution from Brandenburg to Prussia to Germany.

I only give it 4 starts though due to the, sometimes, irrelevant stories of the day-by-day between Christians and Jews, or the lack of an exciting ending since we all know what happened when the book ends.

Anyway, awesome book. Will try to read more from Clark again

The name of Prussia has come to stand for many things, very few of them good. Stiff automans stomping in perfect formation through various military parades. In particular the values and mores ascribed to Prussia were seen as being the germ that led or at least enabled The Nazi horrors. The British military command in common with the other Allies were adamant in banning the very name, with the following quote being symptomatic,"Prussia has been a menace to European society for the past 200 years. The survival of the Prussian state, even if only in name, would provide a base for any nationalist claims the German people may put forward in the future".

Chistopher Clark, painstakingly shows the evolution of Prussia from the chronically weak Brandenburg ravaged by the 30 years war as the most powerless of states leaving the Hohenzollerns so traumatized that they spent the years growing their territorial and military power generation by generation. Culminating in the successive victories over the Danes, Austrians and France setting the stage for Bismarck to ride a wave of nationalist fervor and create Germany. A Germany founded in the belief that Prussian arms would and should always carry the day.

Throughout the book the rise of militarism is explained and put into a wider context and time is takento show that their were other sides to Prussia, universal education, a generous welfare system and philosophers like Hegel and above it all a dedicated and reform driven government civil service.

The book itself is good in parts, I particularly enjoyed the description of the Schwelsig-Holstein controversy " ...it has always been taxing to follow, the more so as nearly everyone involved is called either Frederick or Christian". However it is in turn taxing as I found an awful lot about things I had little idea I wanted to know and little about some like Bismarck or the Weimar I did want to hear about.

Big and comprehensive history of Prussia, the German kingdom that brought us Frederick the Great, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Engels, Bismarck, etc. It took me a while to get through it, mainly because of the amount of information that it contained. I learned a lot about the modern history of that part of Europe, filling in some major gaps in my education.

Prussia was a kingdom that grew up surrounded by the great powers of Europe--France, Austria-Hungary, Russia--without ever being a full member of that club. It was also a multi-ethnic and multi-religious kingdom, including Germans, Poles, Danes, French Huguenots, Catholics, Protestants (Lutheran and Calvinist) and Jews.

After being devastated by the Swedish empire in the Thirty Years War, Prussia followed an interesting strategy which allowed it to survive and more or less thrive for 300 years, until it was officially dissolved as a German province after WWII.

The first part of that strategy was to build up and continuously improve its military. This never made Prussia the equal of Austria, France or especially Russia, but it did make it an attractive alliance partner for those great empires, a position which it exploited to maintain its independence and expand when possible.

The second part of Prussia's strategy was to take a very pragmatic and flexible approach towards to its alliances--entering and exiting as needed based on the kingdom's interests. For example, although Prussia had ancestral political and racial connections to the Austrian/Hapsburg/Holy Roman empire, it took the opportunity to snatch territory from the empire whenever the situation presented itself. It ignored its alliance with Poland when Russia invaded, and instead worked out a deal to get territory in western Poland while allowing Russia to grab eastern Poland. With very little choice (it was invaded) it teamed up with Napoleon's France, but managed to grab more Austrian territory along the way, then formed an alliance with Russia to defeat France, grabbing more territory on its Western border.

Prussian also played a central role in major European trends including the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment. In the 19th century it had among the best public school system and highest literacy rates in world. It was also one of the first European countries to give full equality to Jews (except for certain political offices). In return, most Jewish citizens of Prussia were loyal subjects, and had a high level of participation in the military.

Clark's book does cover issues relating to Jews and other minorities in Prussia, which are interests of mine, but it's not the main focus of the book. In-fighting between different Protestant sects, changes in the power structure between different social classes, as well as more traditional "top-down" history are really what this book concentrates on.

Also, despite the sub-title, "The Rise and Downfall of Prussia", the book spends much more time on the former than on the latter (understandably, given that the downfall happened so quickly, almost explosively). Prussia was done in first by its leadership role in the German national project, championed by Bismarck, then much more quickly by the chaos of the world wars. After WWII, the victorious allies, especially England, were quick to blame "Prussian culture" for promoting Nazism, and removed the Prussian state and name as part of post-war Germany.

To hear Clark tell it, Prussia was something of a scapegoat. Yes, the Nazis took over traditional Prussian symbols (the iron cross, the tradition of military service, etc) as a way to channel German nationalism. And many upper-class Prussians had right-wing political views, and made bad political decisions that allowed Hitler to come to power, though by and large upper-class Prussians were appalled by him. But at the end of the day Nazism was not a Prussian movement (Hitler was not the only Austrian in the movement, and there were South Germans too). In any case, Prussia disappeared, and one does not hear much about it today.

On the whole, this book was a very informative study of a crucial component of modern European history.