Bismarck: A Life

Jonathan Steinberg

Apr 2011 · Oxford University Press

About this ebook

This riveting, New York Times bestselling biography illuminates the life of Otto von Bismarck, the statesman who unified Germany but who also embodied everything brutal and ruthless about Prussian culture. Jonathan Steinberg draws heavily on contemporary writings, allowing Bismarck's friends and foes to tell the story. What rises from these pages is a complex giant of a man: a hypochondriac with the constitution of an ox, a brutal tyrant who could easily shed tears, a convert to an extreme form of evangelical Protestantism who secularized schools and introduced civil divorce. Bismarck may have been in sheer ability the most intelligent man to direct a great state in modern times. His brilliance and insight dazzled his contemporaries. But all agreed there was also something demonic, diabolical, overwhelming, beyond human attributes, in Bismarck's personality. He was a kind of malign genius who, behind the various postures, concealed an ice-cold contempt for his fellow human beings and a drive to control and rule them. As one contemporary noted: "the Bismarck regime was a constant orgy of scorn and abuse of mankind, collectively and individually." In this comprehensive and expansive biography--a brilliant study in power--Jonathan Steinberg brings Bismarck to life, revealing the stark contrast between the "Iron Chancellor's" unmatched political skills and his profoundly flawed human character.

Ratings and reviews

I wish I could give this less than a full star. Steinberg really needs to leave remarks like "my opinion" and "I" out of a supposedly scholarly work. Awful. Didn't even make it past the first full chapter. Don't bother.

The title of this book should be Bismarck: a critique, as Steinberg spends the greater part of the biography belittling Bismarck's achievements and maximizing his faults. He points out that Bismarck was a great statesman but never explains why as he is busy attributing his accomplishments to coincidental events that Bismarck was lucky to stumble upon. I picked this book cause I wanted to read about how Bismarck was able to unify Germany, but all I got was 500+ pages of why Bismarck was a horrible person

About the author

Jonathan Steinberg is the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Modern European History at the University of Pennsylvania, and Emeritus Fellow, Trinity Hall, Cambridge. His books include Yesterday's Deterrent: Tirpitz and the Birth of the German Battle Fleet and All or Nothing: The Axis and the Holocaust 1941 - 1943.