Table of Contents

Preface to the English edition; Introduction to the German edition; 1. Birth trauma: 'It's alive and it's a prince'; 2. Disorder and early sorrow; 3. Ambivalent motherhood; 4. An English princess at the Prussian court; 5. Blood and history; 6. Education fit for a king; 7. The doctor; 8. Trials and tribulations; 9. Experiment in Kassel; 10. Spring dreams and awakening; 11. Coming of age; 12. The student prince; 13. A question of balance: the inner-ear illness of Kaiser Wilhelm II; 14. Cabal and love; 15. Estrangement; 16. Politics; 17. First steps in foreign affairs: Prince Wilhelm between England and Russia; 18. Eros and Austria; 19. 'W. W. W.': Wilhelm-Wedel-Waldersee; 20. Prince Wilhelm and the Battenberg conspiracy; 21. The crown prince's nightmares; 22. The gradual seizure of power; 23. Waldersee and the world conflagration; 24. The edge of darkness: the crown prince on the eve of catastrophe; 25. The flight of the crown prince in the face of death; 26. Prince Wilhelm and Queen Victoria's Jubilee; 27. Crisis in San Remo; 28. The Stoecker meeting and the break with the Bismarcks; 29. Prince Wilhelm and the war party; 30. Preparing for power; 31. The macabre race for the throne; 32. Impotence and agony; Notes; List of archival sources; List of books cited; Index.

Promotional Information

John C. G. Röhl's acclaimed life of Kaiser Wilhelm II, from his birth in 1859 to his accession to the throne in 1888.

About the Author

John C. G. Röhl is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Sussex. His many previous publications include The Kaiser and his Court (1994) which was awarded the Wolfson History Prize as well as the two other volumes of his biography of Kaiser Wilhelm II – Wilhelm II: The Kaiser's Personal Monarchy, 1888–1900 (Cambridge, 2004), which have won the Einhard Prize for the biography of a major European figure in 2012, and Wilhelm II: Into the Abyss of War and Exile, 1900–1941 (2014).

Reviews

Review of the hardback: 'It is a masterpiece … enthrallingly readable.' Niall Ferguson, The Sunday Times

Review of the hardback: 'Röhl's biography is a stunning achievement by any yardstick, a definitive work which breaks new ground.' The Times Higher Education Supplement

Review of the hardback: '… the definitive biography of Germany's last Emperor. No other scholar has Röhl's command of the sources or his deep commitment to understanding Wilhelm's place in history'. James J. Sheehan, The Times Literary Supplement

Review of the hardback: '… a masterpiece … shows just how compelling and how readable academic history can be.' Charlotte Zeepvat, Royalty Digest

Review of the hardback: '… Röhl tells a morbidly fascinating story will skill and impeccable scholarship.' The Court Historian

Review of the hardback: 'The morbid charm of Europe's high nobility has evidently cast its spell over the author. Not only their love affairs but also their illnesses exert a quite irresistible attraction … His account of the Crown Prince's fatal illness of cancer of the larynx, which dominates the last 200 pages of the book … must be the most exact medical record ever written by a historian.' Volker Ulrich, Die Zeit

Review of the hardback: 'It is unlikely that another biography of Wilhelm II will ever surpass the level of detail or the depth of archival knowledge Röhl has achieved.' Isabel V. Hull, Journal of Modern History