A lively writer, he organizes masses of material in orderly fashion, clearly establishing his main themes and pausing at crucial junctures to recapitulate and reconsider. Clark, a senior lecturer in modern European history at Cambridge University, does an exemplary job. This too was Prussia-a tormented kingdom that, like a tragic hero, was brought down by the very qualities that raised it up. Prussia and its army were inseparable, but Prussia was also renowned for its efficient, incorruptible civil service its innovative system of social services its religious tolerance and its unrivaled education system, a model for the rest of Germany and the world. “ Iron Kingdom, Christopher Clark’s stately, authoritative history of Prussia from its humble beginnings to its ignominious end, presents a much more complicated and compelling picture of the German state, which is too often reduced to a caricature of spiked helmets and polished boots. “ enthralling, shrewd, and sparkling narrative… Clark’s immensely learned, judicious, and entertaining book provides a definitive general narrative of its subject for our times… Clark’s achievement is substantial.
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