Young Wilhelm: The Kaiser's Early Life, 1859–1888

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521497523 ISBN 13: 9780521497527

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1999

This rich and compelling volume describes the life of Kaiser Wilhelm II from his birth in 1859 to his accession to the Prusso-German throne in 1888, a story so extraordinary that it will fascinate anyone interested in the psychology and the throng of personalities of the period. Its aim is to set the characters on the stage and let them speak for themselves, which in their letters and diaries the Victorians and Wilhelminians did with quite extraordinary clarity and persuasive power. The central theme is the bitter conflict between the handicapped Prince and his liberal parents, and in particular with his mother, the eldest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and the utter failure of a daring educational experiment intended to turn the young Prince into a liberal Anglophile.

Book Description:

This rich and compelling volume describes the life of Kaiser Wilhelm II from his birth in 1859 to his accession to the Prusso-German throne in 1888, a story so extraordinary that it will fascinate anyone interested in the psychology and the throng of personalities of the period.

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).