MICHAEL STURMER

En este libro se narra la forja del Imperio alemán realizada por Bismark con la unificación de estados diversos, creando una potencia económica y militar que desembocó en la dictadura de Adolf Hitler.

In The German Empire, one of Europes great historians and men of letters chronicles one of historys most fateful transformations--Germanys rise from new nation to prime mover in the chain of events that sent it hurtling into two world wars. In 1871, Otto von Bismarck fused with "blood and iron" a motley collection of principalities, Free Cities, and bishoprics into one Reich. In England, Benjamin Disraeli observed that the world was witnessing "a greater political event than the French revolution of last century. . . . [T]here is not a diplomatic tradition which has not been swept away. . . . The balance of power has been entirely destroyed." Disraelis powers of prophecy, in this as in much else, were formidable.The Age of Bismarck saw Germany become the dynamo of Europe--its preeminent economic and military power, its scientific and educational nerve center, and a place of tremendous artistic ferment. But there would be no simple spell to return to their bottles the genies unleashed by these vast forces, and Michael Sturmer traces the convergence of people and events that sent Europes fragile balance of power over the brink and into conflict. No war was fought for less purpose or with greater slaughter than the First World War which, in Michael Sturmers assured hands, arrives as the next-to-last act of an epic drama all the more tragic for the blazing brilliance of its opening scenes. Though the dramas final horrible act, the Second World War, takes place offstage from The German Empire, it is impossible to understand its origins without the history Michael Sturmer tells here with such elegance and insight.