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Overview
David Williamson’s Bismarck and Germany has long been a definitive guide to Bismarck’s role in German history. A comprehensive and readable study, the book provides a balanced account of Bismarck as the father of the first 'unified' Germany and examines how he consolidated this new state.
Williamson shows how Bismarck skilfully exploited the economic strength of Prussia and the defeats of Austria and France in 1866 and 1870 to create a united Germany by 1871. The state Bismarck created was initially a workable compromise between the demands of the Liberals, the Prussian Crown and the individual states. However, by the 1880s the Bismarckian constitution had become a straitjacket that distorted the constitutional development of Germany up to 1918, despite the fact that it had many modern characteristics such as universal (manhood) suffrage and, by the standards of the time, an exemplary welfare system.
In this third edition, revised and updated to include recent studies of Bismarck, an expanded introduction extending back to 1815 allows students to place Bismarck's remarkable achievement of German unification in the context of political and economic developments in the preceding decades.
Supported by a comprehensive Documents section, and with a new colour plate section, this new edition of a classic text will be an invaluable resource for students and lecturers alike.
David Williamson has written extensively on modern German and International history. Among his publications are Poland Betrayed: The Nazi Soviet Invasions of 1939 (2009), and The Third Reich (fourth edition 2010). Formerly head of History at Highgate School, he is now a writer and freelance lecturer.