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Lead book review

Kaiser Wilhelm's guide to ruining a country

A review of Wilhelm II: Into the Abyss of War and Exile, 1900-1941, by John C.G. Röhl, translated by Sheila de Bellaigue and Roy Bridge. The anachro­nistic, racist and militaristic German monarch hastened his country’s self-destruction

2 August 2014

9:00 AM

2 August 2014

9:00 AM

Wilhelm II: Into the Abyss of War and Exile, 1900–1941 John C.G. Röhl, translated by Sheila de Bellaigue and Roy Bridge

CUP, pp.1562, £45, ISBN: 9786521844314

The role of personality in politics is the theme of this awe-inspiring biography. This is the third volume, 1,562 pages long, of John Röhl’s life of the Kaiser. It has been brilliantly translated — the labyrinth of imperial Germany navigated by many headed subdivisions in each chapter — by Sheila de Bellaigue.

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Available from the Spectator Bookshop, £42.50, Tel: 08430 600033. Kaiser Wilhelm II, a concise edition, will be published as a paperback original later this month (CUP, £16.99, pp. 240, ISBN 9781107420779). Philip Mansel’s books include Louis XVIII, Paris Between Empires, 1814–1852 and The Eagle in Splendour: Napoleon I and His Court.

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