Fundamentally a history of Prussia and not the greater German state. The chapters covering the early kingdoms (1600-1840ish) are best. Very little is mentioned of Bismarck’s wars of unification, WW1, or WW2.

Iron Kingdom provides readers with a well-written walk through the development and exploits of the kingdom of Prussia. Its contributions to Germany's culture and unification are nicely explained by author Christopher Clark.

Few stones remain unturned during this brisk look at three and a half centuries of north Germanic history. The narrative hits the ground running with description of efforts to create a conscious "Prussianness" at a time when it was merely one part of a vast swath of central European kingdoms. The similarities between Italy and Germany's unifications are looked at, as both came together as respective countries in the same year (1871) by bringing together a variety of oftentimes competing principalities.

The coronation of Brandenburg Elector Frederick III as ‘king of Prussia’ in 1701 was demonstrative of the rising importance of Prussia within Brandenburg as well as broader Germania.

Readers anticipating a one-dimensional framing of Prussia (which from 1807 onward was applied as the collective term for the Hohenzollern territories) as little more than a Sparta-like land of Hun warlords will finish this book quite disappointed. The martial, religious, and civic aspects of life in the kingdom are outlined with an impressive clarity which leaves very few gaps in the process.

Iron Kingdom’s opening act is a bit hard to follow, as an array of families and dynastic claims are sifted through on the way to Prussia taking on a more concrete form. The pacing and stride improve significantly once this necessary explanation of Prussia’s genesis takes place.

The section on the Pietist movement and leaders within it like August Francke proves quite thoughtful. Examining the complex religious life of the Prussian state, which frequently viewed itself as the counterweight to Austria and the Holy Roman Empire, is necessarily undertaken to better understand the Prussian polity’s history. The expulsion of Salzburg’s Protestants, and the subsequent propaganda coup of Frederick William II in welcoming them into his lands, showed how Prussia wanted to set itself up as an eighteenth century home for religious freedom of conscience.

The space devoted to the Jews of Prussia underscored the presence of both tolerance toward and bigotry against Jews in Germanic lands well before the days of the Third Reich. The part played by Prussian Jews like Moses Mendelssohn within the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah) of the 1700s was a welcome addition to Iron Kingdom, but with this came a discussion of a string of anti-Semitic works and attitudes.

Frederick the Great’s reign is gone over in ample detail, with both the political and military aspects of his time as king covered by Clark. The tug-of-war between the Habsburgs and Hohonzollerns for supremacy within Germany plays out both during Frederick II’s time as sovereign and throughout the rule of his other family members. Berlin and Vienna act as north and south poles, with smaller principalities like Bavaria, Brunswick, and Saxony reduced to pawns in their geopolitical games.

The willingness of Prussian leadership to often hold the kingdom aloof from alliance-building, on most obvious display during the Napoleonic Wars, was contrasted with the willingness of citizen Prussian paramilitary groups to fill in the gaps. These types of groups foreshadowed the rise of organizations, like the SA, which resided outside of Prussia’s muscular military hierarchy. A rethinking of military strategy was fostered after the warfare with Revolutionary France and the Grand Armee was spearheaded by Gerhard von Scharnhorst and Carl von Clausewitz. (The struggle with France and the fallout from this comprised a lot of the content on Frederick III’s years in power) Clark's willingness to even fill readers in on ancillary figures like these adds to the book's credibility.

Additional strategic aims laid out later in the century by Helmuth von Moltke during the struggle with Austria would come into play in expected ways further down the road.

Prussia was not immune from the changes demanded by other European countries during the late 1840 uprisings. Its evolution toward some acceptance of democratic principles is laid out well in Iron Kingdom, spurred along by the vast inequalities in wealth and social standing and the indifference to this displayed by the Junker class of nobility. The result was reforms in social regulation during Otto von Bismarck’s time at the helm, developments which coincided with the official birth of a united German state in 1871 at the Franco-Prussian War’s conclusion. The primacy of Berlin within this united Germany was shown to be a masterstroke stemming from centuries of Prussia acting from a position of strength.

The reforms of minister Karl August von Hardenberg, who possessed a reformist but authoritarian bent, are analyzed well and placed within the context of Prussia’s move toward becoming a more modern state. The effort expended to detail the accomplishments of functionaries who do not always share the spotlight is a tremendous credit to Iron Kingdom.

The looks at both world wars are somewhat rushed. With Prussia by that point merely a state within the country of Germany, its sphere of independent action is more constrained than during the eras of the Silesian and Napoleonic Wars. As the first Prussian-based ruler during the time of photography and the resulting celebrity it created, Kaiser Wilhem II subsequently comes across as a vainglorious leader obsessed with pomp and circumstance.

World War One is shown to be the final devastating blow to Prussia's place as a respected polity. The War to End All War's resulting takedown of the Hohenzollern dynasty, culminating with Wilhelm II's inglorious fall from power, is the last act of that family's era of dominance in northern Germany.

The role played by Prussia during the rise of Hitler and during his years in power continued to make for compelling reading in the book’s latter section. The presence of many Prussian commanders within the conspiracies to take out the Fuhrer was held out as an example of the sense of duty to humanistic Germanic ideals still alive years after it was folded into the nation-state in 1871.

Iron Kingdom is a really strong book. The flaws in the slow pace of its opening are rapidly made up for, and the Hohenzollern dynasty's history is even-handedly combed over in this above average nonfiction offering. Five stars should not be doled out willy-nilly, but it is fair to say Iron Kingdom earns it thanks to a focused recounting of this German kingdom's past.

-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado

Prussia is perhaps best known to readers of military history, who will be familiar with her as a nation thanks to Frederick The Great, the Napoleonic wars, Bismarck and the Franco-Prussian war, and, of course, the two World Wars. This in itself says a lot about how we've thought of Prussia.

Before I get to Clark's book, I hope you'll allow me a brief digression on a very British view of Prussian culture: one of my first encounters with the classic cliché of the militaristic Prussian type came in the form of the comic film ‘Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines’. The German officer in that movie, played by Gert 'Goldfinger' Frobe, was a fairly benign rendering of the stereotype, sending himself up by parping tuba type bass-lines from pompous martial music, whilst simultaneously exemplifying the vaunted 'military efficiency' of the German officer class by teaching himself to fly from a manual.

In the end his literal downfall is bought about, on one occasion at any rate, by that quintessential image of Prussian militarism, his ‘pickelhaube’ helmet, the point of which bursts his balloon (during an aerial duel with a Frenchman). Behind this relatively recent iteration of the Junkers type as a harmless comical buffoon, there has long lain a much darker vision of aristocratic German elitism, whose paradoxical combination of rigid servility ('I voz only obeyink orderz' was still a comedic playground catchphrase in my childhood) and belligerent arrogance are still popularly seen as amongst the root causes of two world wars.

Whilst Clark makes no reference to the above-mentioned film, the character of the pickelhaube wearing 'kraut' is nevertheless much in evidence, from the amazing zeppelin-with-uhlans image on the cover (of my UK paperback edition), to cartoons from Simplissimus, or the image of a square-headed walrus-mustachioed Hindenberg, and throughout much of the text.

But Clark's book, which at just short of 700 pages is not for those with only a passing interest, is about so much more; from Pietism and the Prussian enlightenment (Prussia was home to Hegel, and later Marx and Engels, as well as Frederick the Great, Bismarck and Hindenberg) to Prussia's dynastic dramas and personalities, and the conflicting driving forces of provincial particularism versus the desire to unify the crazy patchwork of atomised sociopolitical entities into a 'Greater Germany'.

And the book is, on the whole, all the better for this richer synthesis. Having said this, as with so many modern history books, I did find myself occasionally struggling with Clark's laudable but exhausting need to try and cover as much as possible. Adam Zamoyski addresses this issue admirably in excusing his brisk and generalising or simplifying treatment of the Congress of Vienna.

Getting such a balance right must be a very difficult thing, and doubtless few authors can hope to please all their varied readers. Still, on the whole Clark does a very good job, peppering his narrative with interesting little details, as well as covering the grander arcs of events. Sometimes's the details, particularly regarding diplomacy or administration, can get a bit dry, and I did drift away from the book about midway through, ironically during the Napoleonic years (This is particularly ironic for me as it's my wide reading in Napoleonic history that lead me to buy this book).

But after a brief respite I came back to it and got stuck in again. In the interlude I'd read Kershaw's single volume Hitler biog., in which he says, in the intro, that Clark suggested Hubris and Nemesis to him as titles for his full two-volume version. Clark does in fact use these titles himself, for two of his Napoleonic-era chapters. And, as with any good book, this has prompted the desire for further reading.

Amongst the many intriguing threads Frederick the Great appeals to me, both for the excitement of 'great captain' style military history, but also because he's also just generally very interesting. Amongst other things I'm very attracted to his blunt irreligiosity: Clark quotes him as saying of Christianity that it's an 'old metaphysical fiction, stuffed with ... absurdities... fanatics espoused it, intriguers pretended to be convinced by it and some imbeciles actually believed it.' Brilliant!

Right next door to Prussia, Poland is another country with a famously unstable and chequered history. During the Napoleonic era Poland ceased to exist, her neighbours, Prussia, Austria and Russia, carving her up, whilst Napoleon exploited Polish nationalism without rewarding her people with the return to nationhood they thought he might help bring about (indeed,the War of 1812 was originally talked about in the circles of France and her allies as the Polish war!).

Thanks to Prussia's role in two world wars it is the largest of the modern European powers currently erased from the map. Will she, like Poland, make an eventual return? It doesn't look very likely at present. But who really knows, perhaps at some future point the Prussian national identity will return? Based on our most recent previous historical experiences, this could potentially be a very scary development!

Clark avoids such speculations, contenting himself with the rich historical story. Prussia's role in unifying Germany, including her relationship with her chief rival Austria, as well as the many smaller states (such as Saxony, Bavaria and a myriad of others) during a period of escalating nationalism, is just one of the many fascinating themes he expertly explores in this book.

Whilst Clark is in many respects thoroughly academic, there are flashes of wit and style which make works such as this a little more palatable to the lay reader, such as when he observes that 'William I was ... widely revered... a figure with the gravitas and whiskers of a biblical patriarch.' But all told I found this a somewhat uneven read, compelling and even exciting in places, but sometimes a little too drily or academically thorough.

Overall, however, Iron Kingdom was rewarding and informative enough that I enjoyed and would recommend it.

An extensive book about the rise of Prussia, maily focussing on cultural and religious aspects

This book turned out to be a little bit different than I first expected. The book mainly focusses on the period of the Frederickian Kings and is mainly focussed on cultural and religious aspects of Prussian society. The wars that shaped the Prussian state are mentioned, but not in detail.

The main problem that I had with this book was that it was to academic; therefore lacking in an overall readability that you might expect from such a topic. In the end I found myself skipping certain parts of the book, because I got a little bit fed up with reading about the religious changes again ...

Just how tenable is a modern state--a Great Power, in fact--if it refuses to conform to modern nationhood? Per Christopher Clark, the answer would would be "surprisingly so," though with roughly a trillion caveats. In a quick-reading narrative style that belies the mind-boggling mastery of a huge sweep of historical epochs and characters, Clark charts the uneasy path that early progenitors of the Prussian dynastic line took through the political and cultural battles of modernizing, maturing Europe. The chapters dwell at length on major turning points in German history that are familiar: the Thirty Years War, Frederick the Great, Napoleon, Bismarck and others. But that's not to say there isn't space allocated to lesser lights as well. The emancipation of the Jews by Hardenburg and the just-in-time empathetic genius of Frederick William IV are just two examples of many bit players whom register as essential in the Prussian project. And there's plenty of time to reconsider the 'German story' anew when it's told from the Prussian angle, and some old favorites come up for new treatment (eg, Hindenburg really was the a-hole you thought he might be). A massive book and a major accomplishment. Most definitely a long, immersive read. Well worth the time of anyone with an introductory (or expert) familiarity with German history.

I'd also say that the timing of this book is propitious. There are those who see in Merkel's Germany a return to the Prussian model of statecraft, bent on the expansion of state influence beyond central Europe but without any particular attachment to a favored ethnic stock. As a state so accustomed to governing diverse peoples in a tumultuous Europe, Prussian history would serve as an obvious forerunner and comparative foil.

These are interesting times for Germany... or is it Prussians? Clark leaves it somewhat open, but that doesn't mean he couldn't have found time for an afterword. As is, the book ends fairly abruptly (if provocatively). I understand that the book runs long as is, but I think later editions would have plenty of reason to include Clark's timely reflections on Germany in the present.

Christopher Clark's Iron Kingdom offers a dense chronicle of Prussia, from its origins as a minor electorate in the Holy Roman Empire to the center of German unification and empire. Clark's narrative focuses on how Prussia, despite serving as a synecdoche for the less appealing aspects of German history (authoritarianism, unthinking obedience militarist expansion) was for centuries a driving force for European progress, boasting a proud culture of artistic and intellectual pursuits, progressive education systems and efficient government bureaucratic rule for centuries. Not to mention, for much of its history, religious tolerance towards Catholics, Jews and other minorities that often seemed centuries ahead of its time. One's assessment of German history cannot be exclusively defined by its Gotterdammerung in the Third Reich; but also one can hardly ignore its roots in past history and personalities. Thus Clark, in writing such an expansive history, needs to thread his needle very carefully. And he succeeds beautifully.

Clark's book is at its best when chronicling Prussia's various leaders of thought and government, with a focus (though not exclusive) on the Hohenzollerns: a "family on the make" who ruled Prussia for most of its history. Under a succession of rulers, some visionary (Frederick William, the "Great Elector" who wrested increased independence from the morass of the Thirty Years War), others mediocre or worse, the Hohenzollerns transformed the small principality (consisting of northeastern Germany, and much of modern Poland) from a backwater to a major player on the European stage. The early Hohenzollerns were not uniformly brilliant or enlightened, but even in their early stages showed interest in free trade, educational reform and military modernization. At first just another state within the loosely confederated Holy Roman Empire, Prussia began developing a distinct identity which marked it distinct from its peers.

The Prussian state reached its apotheosis under Frederick the Great, whose near-half-century rule (1740-1786) reshaped German, and European history. Fredericks combination of military genius, government reforms, artistic pursuits and grouchy temperament came to represent Germany's Enlightenment. Appropriately, arts and philosophy flourished under Frederick; an amateur musician and inveterate writer (usually in French, as he found the German language repulsive) who courted Voltaire, patronized Bach, reinstituted the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin, commissioned redistribution of farmland and formalized the bureaucratic and structural reforms of his predecessors. His intellectual pursuits were paired with epochal military achievements, particularly in the Seven Years War (1756-1763) where he won a series of improbable victories against an alliance of France, Austria and Russia.

Clark argues that to the extent the myth of "Prussian militarism" rings true, it's the result of the country's unique geography. Located in central Europe between the Holy Roman Empire, Austria, Russia and Sweden, it was scourged in the Thirty Years War, enlisted as a pawn in the various Continental wars of the 18th Century and, after Frederick's brilliant victories in the Seven Years War, defeated and partitioned within an inch of its life by Napoleon. Prussia thus developed its military to ensure some degree of security, and began winning wars rather than merely enduring them. But its pragmatic (one might say devious) approach to foreign policy, playing its powerful neighbors against one another, ensured it was dragged into continental wars, sometimes against its will, often to its detriment. It's wrong to draw a straight line from Frederick to Hitler, but it's easy to interpret this as the seed of later obsessions with "encirclement" and lebensraum that drove so many German leaders to distraction. As, indeed, the veneration of the strong leaders (Frederick most of all, who became the subject of a near-religious cult after the Seven Years War) provided a baleful template for less principled rulers.

Indeed, for all that he lauds the progressivism of Prussia, Clark shows that its system just as easily accommodated reaction. The aristocratic Junker class, for the obvious example, maintained a near-feudal system of control over their subjects, independence from government strictures and heavy influence on agriculture and industry. Clark argues, with some justice, that the Junker system of landownership was more tolerant than many of its contemporaries, at least when first established, in allowing autonomy and encouraging good treatment of tenant farmers. The problem is that it continued well into the 20th Century, when it came increasingly to appear as an archaic relic. Religious acceptance was extended, but only so far (Frederick, although encouraging toleration of Catholics and Jews, pursued oppressive policies against both in Silesia and other occupied territories). And although women (at least, aristocratic women) played a major role in the rise and development of Prussia, after the reign of bachelor Frederick a heavily chauvinist view of society as male-driven reduced them to marginal (though certainly not silent) figures within German culture.

Clark views the 1848 Revolutions in Germany not as a "turning point [which] failed to turn" (in A.J.P. Taylor's famous phrase) but a moment when Prussian history changed, for better and worse. The Frankfurt Parliament laid down a platform of liberal nationalist principles, calling for democratic rights and German unification, viewing the latter as a potential guarantor against the outmoded class systems of extant German states. To the surprise of many, Frederick William IV (r. 1840-1861) sided with the revolutionaries and granted many of their concessions, including the establishment of a constitutional monarch, with an elected Reichstag along with an upper, noble house of Parliament. Yet Frederick William refused to accept enthronement as Emperor of Germany, believing a united German state detrimental to Prussia's health. His successor, Wilhelm I (r. 1861-1888), had no such scruples, and gladly harnessed the ideals of the 1848 rebels to his own, reactionary agenda. Thus, under the aegis of him and Otto von Bismarck, unification was affected in 1871, after victory in the Franco-Prussian War and declaration of the German Empire at Versailles.

Bismarck, unsurprisingly, takes center stage for much of Iron Kingdom's narrative. Long a product both of veneration and scorn, Clark treats him as a complicated figure. Himself a Junker, Bismarck "could not" be a liberal and viewed any concessions to the Left as a means to defang radical opponents. Thus Bismarck liberalized elements of the German welfare state, extended male suffrage and to some degree expanded the power of the Reichstag. But the Iron Chancellor also introduced authoritarian measures: the Kulturkampf (a crackdown on the Catholic Church in Germany), the suppression of dissident and radical groups (outlawing the Social Democratic Party multiple times) and, though he initially opposed it, creation of an overseas colonial empire. Bismarck in turn was swept away by Wilhelm II (1888-1918), who succeeded the throne after his liberal father, Frederick III, died prematurely. In his aggressive weltpolitik, authoritarian delusions at home and erratic personality, the last Kaiser embodied a grotesque caricature of everything German, destroying the country's reputation as a land of artists and liberals prior to the First World War.

Prussia cannot be fairly blamed for the rise of Hitler, as Clark shows; the Nazis were viewed skeptically by Prussian conservatives and struggled to gain a political foothold in that part of the country, whose working and middle classes tended to support Social Democrats and other left parties. Still, Hindenburg and other Prussian elites (including Wilhelm's son the Crown Prince, who persuaded himself Hitler would restore his father to the throne) were complicit in Hitler's rise to power, helped cement his dictatorship and followed him loyally until the last days of World War II. And certainly, Hitler and his propagandists made heavy use of Prussian history to justify their reign: the images of Frederick and Bismarck were invoked as nationalist heroes, their enlightened policies and liberal actions ignored in favor of military achievements and the Fuhrerprinzip. Never mind that Hitler was Austrian, his party's powerbase was in Bavaria and that his Party struggled to gain support in "Red Berlin"; in the interest of propaganda, tying "the Bohemian Corporal" to Prussian heroes and traditions served a great purpose than truth.

This propaganda, of course, cut both ways. After World War II, the Allies wrote Prussia ("the core of Germany" an the "source of recurring pestilence," according to Winston Churchill) out of existence as a political entity by the Allies, more for emotional reasons than factual considerations. Any remnants of the Junker system were disbanded, with the Prussian elite (including the Hohenzollerns) losing their land and property, triggering lawsuits that linger to this day. Such are the wages of stereotypes, which echo into modern historiography and political debates. Today's Germans themselves debate whether Prussia's legacy should be embraced or scorned; English-speakers continue to invoke "Prussianism" as an insult; and Germany's heavy involvement supplying military equipment to Ukraine has raised trepidation about the resurgence of the "Prussian spirit." Clark's book, though a dense, sometimes exhausting read, especially for lay readers without background in the subject, provides a thorough, balanced corrective to that lasting stereotype. If nothing else, for avoiding the usual pitfalls of Anglosphere historians generalizing about the "German character," Clark is to be commended.

This outstanding book lives up to its reputation. It's easily the best and most engaging work of German history I've read to date, and one of the most solid works of history I've read as a whole. Clark exemplifies my ideal of historiography, telling a spellbinding story of great and terrible people without reducing history to a drama of princes and kings. And he succeeds in making the complicated story of one of the great centers of German civilization comprehensible. Highly recommended.

Mit dem von mir sehr geschätzten Historiker Christopher Clark habe ich mich auf eine lange Reise durch die Geschichte Preußens begeben. Sein umfangreiches Buch »Preußen – Aufstieg und Niedergang 1600 bis 1947« bietet nicht nur in geballter Form zahlreiche Informationen über diesen höchst merkwürdigen Staat, sondern räumt auch mit einer ganzen Reihe von hartnäckigen Mythen auf.
Wie schon in »Die Schlafwandler« und »Frühling der Revolution« erzählt Clark mit einer erfreulichen Klarheit, ohne gewundenes Gelehrten-Gedröhn. Bei einem derart ausgreifenden Unternehmen muss zwangsweise die nötige Tiefe fehlen, sonst wäre das Buch unlesbar.
Doch ist es ein vorzüglicher Schmöker, weil es sich auf das Wesentliche beschränkt und – ganz wichtig – nicht nur auf die Zeit nach 1914 fokussiert bleibt, sondern die lange Entwicklung beschreibt. Clarks zentrale These lautet: Deutschland sei nicht die Vollendung Preußens, sondern sein Verhängnis gewesen.

An excellent book on a subject often only tangentially examined. There has been a abundance of ink spilled on German military history, but I have always wanted a closer look at Prussia. In the aftermath of the Thirty Years War, Prussia rose to power on the back of a strong administrative state and masterful bureaucracy. My one complaint about this book was in it's balance. A larger portion of the book went to the early Prussian period up through the defeat of Napoleon (which was, of course, interesting), but I would have liked to see more on the Franco-Prussian War and Bismarck's tenure especially.

I love narrative history but did not love this book. The author stayed at too great a distance from the personalities of the major players in the history of Prussia. Amazingly, he gave almost no specifics on the tactical battle plans of Frederick the Great, one of the greatest modern commanders. His chapters of the book were no more detailed that those dedicated to rulers who did nothing much more than maintain control for their descendants.

A person who likes the bird's eye view of history may enjoy this, however.

Prussia – Land of Myths

Prussia, the name alone already evokes a bunch of diverse, often contradictory associations. It makes you think of Frederick II, the philosopher-king, who is renowned for saying that everyone should seek heaven in his own fashion, of reformers like Stein and Hardenberg, who drew the necessary conclusions from shattering military defeats and created a more modern and efficient state, but also of the ludicrously pompous William II, of sabre-rattling, monocle-wearing, heel-clicking officers, military arrogance and cold lust for power, which finally led the whole of Germany into the abyss of National Socialism.

In his fascinating book Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600 – 1947, Christopher Clark shows that all of these associations have to be taken with a grain of salt, and what is more, he also demonstrates that most of these myths – if, like me, you dislike the new-fangled term “narrative” – were deliberately fostered and used by various groups within the Prussian state but also by its enemies. To give you one example, let’s take the Tauroggen Convention, which was brought about by the unauthorized decision of lieutenant general von Yorck to sign an armistice with Russia and to declare the neutrality of his troops. Both the Nazis and the conservative Prussian resisters made use of the example of Yorck, as Clark shows and goes on to conclude:

”For the Nazis, Yorck was the symbol of an oppressed Germany rising up against foreign ‘tyranny’ – for the resisters he represented a transcendant sense of duty that might even, under certain circumstances, articulate itself in an act of treason. We naturally look more kindly on one of these Prussia-myths than on the other. Yet both were selective, talismanic and instrumental. Precisely because it had become so abstract, so etiolated, ‘Prussiandom’ was up for grabs. It was not an identity, not even a memory. It had become a catalogue of disembodied mythical attributes whose historical and ethical significance was, and would, remain in contention.” (p.670)

This concept, of how a dynasty’s quest for political influence and power came to shape identities and myths that were finally bigger than their origins, and what ruptures and contentions occurred during this process, is at the core of Clark’s deftly-written history of Prussia. Reading this made me repeatedly think of whether what he says of “Prussia” might not also be true in its own way of the process that is presently unrolling with regard to “Europe” and the European identity. For, as one contemporary wit said that Prussia was a state that was kept by an army, might we not say that Europe is presently a continent that is kept by a bureaucracy? The one may be as true-untrue as the other, and the difficulties people have in agreeing what is part of “being European” and what isn’t are redolent of the contentions over the essence of “true Prussiandom”.

But let me add some more sentences about the book itself. Clark is really a brilliant writer, who chooses an overall chronological approach leading his readers from the humble beginnings of electorate of Brandenburg to the “merging of Prussia into Germany” and the formal dissolving of Prussia in 1930. Nevertheless, he does not simply concentrate on a history of individual rulers even though he gives fascinating vignettes of the individual rulers’ characters. Instead, he manages to portray structures as well, e.g. by concentrating on questions such as the role of women, religious and ethnic minorities, social and regional conflicts, changes in administration and the military, diplomatic entanglements, and developments in philosophy (especially with regard to the question of the role of the state) and arts. The result is a marvellously caleidoscopic expedition through roughly four hundred years of Prussian history with all its ups and downs. What is more, Clark is a fair chronicler who neither wishes to exculpate nor to demonize. He does not conceal the sometimes ruthless decisions of individual rulers – for example, Frederick II’s starting the Silesian Wars without a formal declaration of war – but he puts them into their historical context, thereby allowing his readers to draw their own conclusions.

This is a work of history that takes its readers seriously and both informs and fascinates. I am looking forward to more books from this outstanding historian.

Not history as the history of great men, not history as military history, not history from below but a magnificent, monumental, magisterial blend of all of those. A thoroughly modern history that takes into account areas such as education, attitudes to women and their role in society, collective memory, the symbolic portrayal of power through statuary and rituals, and constantly, throughout, the way that the idea of Prussiandom was shoehorned into service either as perfect role model or as bane of European and German history, according to individual political views and individual distortion of the very concept. As Christopher Clark puts it in his introduction, far better than I ever could: "the story of the Prussian state is also the story of the story of the Prussian state, for the Prussian state made up its history as it went along, developing an ever more elaborate account of its trajectory in the past and its purposes in the present."

History as man-made. History as the way we impose order on chaos. The huge problem with Prussian history is that the Prussian state has been both celebrated as the glorious apogee of rational administration and progress, and vilified as the embodiment of all that is reprehensible in German culture: militarism, conquest and arrogance. Those secondary Prussian virtues of discipline, obedience, a sense of duty, were they merely the obverse side of the same coin that gave rise to "a political culture marked by illiberalism and intolerance, an inclination to revere power over legally grounded right, and an unbroken tradition of militarism"? This is a debate that will not fade. It flickers back into life regularly, a legacy of the dispute amongst historians about whether the Nazi regime was an accident or an inevitable destination of the German "Sonderweg" (special path). Christopher Clark is an Australian historian writing in 21st century Cambridge, and as such is happy to be dispensed "from the obligation (or temptation) either to lament or to celebrate the Prussian record. Instead, this book aims to understand the forces that made and unmade Prussia." He aims to unsettle any kind of teleological narrative, to open up the record in such a way that both order and disorder have their place, to show how the march of history is often haphazard and improvised. And he has achieved this paradoxical aim: to show disorder, haphazardness and improvisation in a clear and orderly manner, in a supple and gripping narrative. Terrific.