In this first biography in English for fifty years, Derek McKay avoids the limitation of seeing Frederick William primarily as precursor of the 'Enlightened' Frederick the Great. Instead, he roots him firmly in his own time, a dynastic, protestant ruler like many another in Germany, but gifted with the toughness and opportunism to overcome the hostility of his local nobilities and of the surrounding great powers.

First published in 1984. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book presents a fresh historical and theoretical analysis of religion and politics in early modern Europe.

Winner of the prestigious MacIver Award when it was first published, this remains a towering work of modern political sociology, especially of macrosociology. Its main objective is comparative analysis of political commonalities found in different societies, both historical and present. The book seeks to find some pattern or laws in the structure and development of such systems. The imaginative use of data helps to bring order into what might otherwise be considered a speculative volume. The purpose of The Political Systems of Empires is to apply sociological concepts to the analysis of historical societies through the comparative analysis of a special type of political system. This analysis does not purport to be historical or descriptive. Its main objective is comparative analysis of political commonalities found in different societies. The book seeks to find some pattern or laws in the structure and development of such systems.

Nearly nine centuries after their first appearance, caring for pilgrims in hospices and protecting them from attack on the road, Military Orders continue to play a variety of social and charitable roles today. This collection of thirty-three papers from the second international conference on the Military Orders, contributed by scholars from Europe, the Middle East and the United States, reflects a variety of concerns, but the focus is very much on the beginnings of the Military Orders and their heyday at the time of the Crusades.The subject matter reflects the Military Ordersa (TM) wide-ranging activities, dealing with topics such as medieval hospital care, crusading in the Middle East, warfare in Lithuania, piracy in the Mediterranean, castles in Bohemia, the Reformation in Switzerland and 17th-century European diplomacy. This volume complements the Proceedings of the very successful first conference, The Military Orders: Fighting for the Faith and Caring for the Sick, edited by Malcolm Barber (1994) and now out of print.

For Frederick the Great, the prescription for warfare was simple: kurz und vives (short and lively) - wars that relied upon swift, powerful, and decisive military operations. Robert Citino takes us on a dramatic march through Prussian and German military history to show how that primal theme played out time and time again. Citino focuses on operational warfare to demonstrate continuity in German military campaigns from the time of Elector Frederick Wilhelm and his great sleigh-drive against the Swedes to the age of Adolf Hitler and the blitzkrieg to the gates of Moscow. Along the way, he underscores the role played by the Prussian army in elevating a small, vulnerable state to the ranks of the European powers, describes how nineteenth-century victories over Austria and France made the German army the most respected in Europe, and reviews the lessons learned from the trenches of World War I.