He tempers the conventional notion that Prussia's bureaucratic absolutism was a well-oiled machine and further draws attention to local elites resisting centralizing authority. For the early modern period, the evolving transformation of the Hohenzollern dynasty into a bureaucratic absolutist state is the principal hook upon which Clark hangs other critical features of Prussian culture, public life, and state building: Pietism, the Enlightenment, the landed aristocracy, social hierarchies, and the military. Iron Kingdom briskly surveys four centuries of Prussian history. Both specialists and non-specialists will profit immensely from this re-evaluation of Prussia's place in German and European history. Reminiscent of Thomas Nipperdey's sovereign impartiality, the author strides over apologia and condemnation, the usual pitfalls of Prussian historiography.

Standing on the shoulders of recent scholarship as well as upon his earlier research on religion and the Hohenzollern monarchy, Clark has written a thematically rich narrative that is judicious, open-minded, and balanced. Indeed, one is hard put to cite a German-language work that has achieved similar results. xviii plus 776 pp.).Ĭhristopher Clark's study constitutes one of the most significant works on Prussia in the last thirty years. By Christopher Clark (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006. The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947. The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947.' Retrieved from The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947.' The Free Library.

Iron Kingdom by Christopher Clark