Brillat-Savarin is without contest the nicest figure in french history. Far from beeing only a gourmet, he was also deeply involved in the events of the french revolution. Giles Mac Donogh renders perfectly the atmosphere of a life turned upside down by history, at a time when the cuisine itself experienced a deep change: the first restaurants were opened a few years before the revolution

The most recent English language biographical study of Wilhelm is The Last Kaiser: The Life of Wilhelm II by Giles MacDonogh (2001). MacDonogh seems to have set out deterministically to write something other than an "indictment" of Wilhelm. He asserts that historians have been unduly critical against the emperor for eighty years, which has prompted him to examine Wilhelm "in a light which, if not ridiculously positive, [is] at least a little more indulgent than that which as coloured attitudes in the past." (viii) While MacDonogh's study is not "ridiculously positive," it does tend to minimize Wilhelm's culpability for the various blunders historians commonly associate with his reign. While he concurs with other scholars of Wilhelmine Germany that the emperor was "a mass of contradictions," (1) MacDonogh also minimizes the Kaiser's documented anti-Semitism, and strongly implies that the "cases brought up against the emperor" such as the Kruger telegram (1896), the "Hun Speech" of 1900, and the Daily Telegraph Affair (1908), were handled "reasonable, and in some cases well" by the Kaiser. (7) This attempt to show that Wilhelm did not act maliciously, criminally or incompetently is what differentiates The Last Kaiser from its predecessors.
In MacDonogh's account of Wilhelm's wartime role, he reaches a familiar conclusion: "it would be impossible to make out that he played the role of 'Supreme Warlord' between 1914 and 1918." (3) He shows that Wilhelm "wavered over the preventive strike" long advocated by the General Staff, and "each time he looked in to the abyss he drew back in horror and countermanded" his generals' orders for such an attack. (9) This gives the kaiser too much of a benevolent, conscientious role for the time. MacDonogh portrays a Kaiser swept up with the emotions and events of August 1914, a leader who allowed himself to be carried into the war. By the first weeks of the conflict, "he had become increasingly peripheral." (367) This declension culminated in January 1917 with Bethmann Hollweg's removal at the insistence of Hindenburg and Ludendorff, at which point Wilhelm "was no more than a shadow emperor. No one listened to him." (391) Probably true.....
Despite showing far more sympathy toward his subject than other biographers of Wilhelm II have done, MacDonogh echoes many of their conclusions. "It is perhaps right that we condemn William," he suggests, "for if the First World War was not his undertaking, the finger of blames points over and over again to the failure of German diplomacy in which he tried so hard to play a positive role." (460) MacDonogh seems reluctant to assign Wilhelm much direct blame for the origins of the Great War or how it was conducted. On the contrary, most students of the last Hohenzollern ruler of Germany concur with the concise biographical entry in The Oxford Companion to Military History (2001): Kaiser Wilhelm II was "seduced by...nationalism and militarism," and came to discover that "leading a cavalry charge on maneuvers...is not the same thing as presiding over a beleaguered state engaged in total war." The last German Kaiser "lacked the strength of character and consistency of purpose which his role demanded, and if he cannot be blamed for leading Germany into war, he may be more justly censured for what one historian has called 'a childlike flight from reality' in the crisis of 1914."

I actually feel a little bit guilty giving this book only 3 stars! It is clear from the endnotes that Mr. MacDonogh did a prodigious amount of research, almost all of it in the primary German sources. There are many amusing and interesting bits and pieces.....little details concerning the way William dressed and ate; many clever and sarcastic comments about their contemporaraies made by William and Bismarck; a description of how William passed the time of day after he was forced to abdicate (he loved to chop wood, and at his first "home" in exile, Amerongen, he managed to chop up some 14,000 trees- giving away most of the wood to the poor). And even though it is interesting to read about many of these things, the end result is oddly unsatisfying. It is almost as though the author found lots of fascinating material, knew he had to include it, but couldn't turn everything into a coherent whole. Mr. MacDonogh quotes so many contrasting opinions that we are left with all of the following: William was an anti-Semite; William was not an anti-Semite; William was brilliant and could have been another Frederick The Great; William was lazy; William had boundless energy and was always traveling and making speeches; William was mentally unbalanced; William could have done more to prevent the slide into WWI; William's hands were tied by the military and by right-wing members of the government; William wanted an alliance with the British; no he didn't; William wanted an alliance with the Russians; no he didn't.....I think you get the idea! In the end, we are left with no clear picture of William as a person or as a ruler, nor are we left with a clear picture of what was going on in Germany in the crucial years leading up to 1914. Imagine that Georges Seurat started to paint a portrait of someone, but by the time the picture was finished it had mutated into a Jackson Pollock! That's probably the best description I could give you of how I felt by the end of this book...

The book is good because it examines one of the figures who was instrumental in shapping the 20th century. The author proves that he was very erratic with his forighn policy and his views on the world. The author also disproves the misconception that it was his imperial ambitions that led to the first World War and points out that it was the militarism of prussian aristocrats.

After reading this book, I still didn't know why Frederick II of Prussia had been accorded the title "the Great" by history. This volume spends a lot of time on detailing the personal life of a very flawed man, and very little explaining why he was a seminal force in 18th century politics. I finally turned to his entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica, which in a short article did a better job of explaining Frederick's place in history than this book did.

Other flaws in this book: for those of us not familiar with 18th century European political geography, a map or two would have been helpful; without maps, it's impossible to understand Frederick's political machinations or (especially) his military campaigns. Also, incredibly, among the pictures there is not a single one of Frederick's queen!

At times criticized and commended for its focus on merely Frederick, rather than Frederick the Great, MacDonogh's effort merits the attention of amateurs and enthusiasts alike. In a relatively brief space, MacDonogh is able to reveal a great deal of primary insight about a man who distinguished himself not only with the sword, but also a pen, a flute, etc. MacDonogh also demonstrates his ability to use the personalities to illustrate the time; weaving a thread through the German principalities of Frederick's youth is difficult enough without the need to discuss the circumstances of Frederick, his father and the machinations of foreign and Prussian envoys and courtiers. MacDonogh has given us an insightful piece about a man who lived a life full of something for everyone.

In a society stuffed with anglophiles and, more recently, celticphiles, we have little history available on Middle Europe and its grandeur. We know that it produced the most terrible army of the 20th Century. We also know of colorful snippets about how 18th Century German mercenaries lent a hand in Britain's fruitless effort to keep 13 American colonies from becoming an indepent nation.

The book gives a much deserved look at how Middle Europe's nations evolved through marriage, annexing and (naturlich) war. Frederick is taken off of his pedestal for us to take a closer look, and the authors shows us Frederick's warts and all. His family, especially his father, plays a vitol role in the book, which the author infers that this is a key element in driving Frederick to succeed.

If there is a shortcoming in the book, it would be the battles. Though the book was not published to be a historical guide on tactics and strategics, I would like to know more on how the protagonist became so land rich at Prussia's zenith.