"Wilhelm II (27 January 1959-4 June 1941) was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia. He was the eldest grandson of Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe. Wilhelm became monarch in 1888 and ruled in peace for twenty-five years. Wilhelm's father had been the hero of three wars and his mother the Princess Royal of Great Britain. When his father died prematurely of throat cancer, Wilhelm succeeded him at age twenty-nine and became the icon of the new 'Wilhelminian' age. Germany excelled in commerce, agriculture, trade, science, cars, the arts, and medicine. Already having Continental Europe's greatest army, Wilhelm set about winning world power via overseas colonies and the building of vast Imperial High Seas Fleet that rivaled Britain's. Eventually, he was defeated by the combined forces of the UK, France, Russia and latterly the USA, and driven into exile by the red revolution. This is a fresh look at a much maligned figure, including his relationships with Bismarck, Hindenburg, Tirpitz, King Edward VII and Tsar Nicholas II, all on the precipice of global change. Was Wilhelm a visionary, a fool, or both?" --from flap.

A Washington Post Notable Book An eye-opening account of how Congress today really works—and how it doesn’t— Act of Congress focuses on two of the major players behind the sweeping financial reform bill enacted in response to the Great Crash of 2008: colorful, wisecracking congressman Barney Frank, and careful, insightful senator Christopher Dodd, both of whom met regularly with Robert G. Kaiser during the eighteen months they worked on the bill. In this compelling narrative, Kaiser shows how staffers play a critical role, drafting the legislation and often making the crucial deals. Kaiser’s rare insider access enabled him to illuminate the often-hidden intricacies of legislative enterprise and shows us the workings of Congress in all of its complexity, a clearer picture than any we have had of how Congress works best—or sometimes doesn’t work at all.

A personal and political analysis of the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II using new archival sources.

Convinced that both God and the Kaiser were on their side, the officers and men of the German Army went to war in 1914, confident that they were destined for a swift and crushing victory in the West. The vaunted Schlieffen Plan on which the anticipated German victory was based expected triumph in the West to be followed by an equally decisive success on the Eastern Front. It was not to be. From the winter of 1914 until the early months of 1918, the struggle on the Western Front was characterised by trench warfare. But our perception of the conflict takes little or no account of the realities of life 'across the wire' in the German trenches. This book redresses that imbalance and reminds us how similar these young German men were to our own Tommies. Drawing from diaries and letters, Ian Passingham charts the hopes and despair of the German soldiers, filling an important gap in the history of the Western Front.

Germany's ability to support its war machine financially has long puzzled scholars. The young nation had exhausted itself paying for its loss in the First World War, had suffered a hyperinflation in the early 1920s, and had ended the 1920s with a terrible economic depression. This is the first book in any language to examine the budget policies of the middle years of the Weimar Republic and to look at how these policies changed the politics of the time. It is also the first work to support the government's aggressive use of deficit spending and fiscal stimuli to promote economic growth. Some findings even indicate that the German government could have used creative financial solutions to avoid the worst of the Depression and to avert the Nazi regime. Clingan explores the changes and continuities in fiscal policy and budget-making politics, beginning in the last years of the Wilhelmine Empire and continuing into the 1930s. Although this is a story about money, it is also a story about men. Very few in Nazi Germany understood the intricacies of fiscal policy and budget making, and political parties tended to follow the lead of those who did. Clingan combines their personal stories with the tale of a country still growing into its economic power and still trying to learn both its limits and its strengths.