With great flair and authority, the author describes Prussia's great battles, dynastic marriages and astonishing reversals of fortune, its brilliant and charismatic leaders from the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg to Bismarck and Frederick the Great, the military machine and the progressive, enlightened values on which it was built.

King of Prussia, German Emperor, war leader and defeated exile, Kaiser Wilhelm II was one of the most important figures in the history of twentieth-century Europe. This book presents a fresh interpretation of this contentious figure, focusing on how his thirty-year reign from 1888 to 1918 affected Germany, and the rest of Europe.