This is the life story of one of the most interesting human beings who ever lived. A political genius who remade Europe and united Germany between 1862 and 1890 by the sheer power of his great personality. It takes the reader into close proximity with a human being of almost superhuman abilities. We see him through the eyes of his secretaries, his old friends, his neighbours, his enemies and the press. Otto von Bismarck 'made' Germany but never 'ruled' it. For twenty eight years he acted a...

This is the life story of one of the most interesting human beings who ever lived. A political genius who remade Europe and united Germany between 1862 and 1890 by the sheer power of his great personality. It takes the reader into close proximity with a human being of almost superhuman abilities. We see him through the eyes of his secretaries, his old friends, his neighbours, his enemies and the press. Otto von Bismarck 'made' Germany but never 'ruled' it. For twenty eight years he acted a...

This riveting, New York Times bestselling biography illuminates the life of Otto von Bismarck, the statesman who unified Germany but who also embodied everything brutal and ruthless about Prussian culture. Jonathan Steinberg draws heavily on contemporary writings, allowing Bismarck's friends and foes to tell the story. What rises from these pages is a complex giant of a man: a hypochondriac with the constitution of an ox, a brutal tyrant who could easily shed tears, a convert to a...

Revised and completely updated edition of Jonathan Steinberg's classic account of Switzerland's unique political and economic system. Why Switzerland? examines the complicated voting system that allows citizens to add, strike out, or vote more than once for candidates, with extremely complicated systems of proportional representation; a collective and consensual executive leadership in both state and church; and the creation of the Swiss idea of citizenship, with tolerance of differences o...

Generalized probabilistic theories (GPTs) allow us to write quantum theory in a purely operational language and enable us to formulate other, vastly different theories. As it turns out, there is no canonical way to integrate the notion of subsystems within the framework of convex operational theories. Sections can be seen as generalization of subsystems and describe situations where not all possible observables can be implemented. Jonathan Steinberg discusses the mathematical foundations o...

Switzerland is a special and fascinating place. Its unique institutions, its direct democracy, multi-member executives, absence of strikes, communal autonomy, its universal military service, its wealth, and four national languages make it interesting in itself. But it has wider significance, in representing the 'Europe that did not happen', the Europe that escaped the centralisation of state and economy associated with the modern world. Today, there is a new special feature. Switzerland is...

German and Italian fascist armies in the Second World War treated the Jews quite differently. Jews who fell into the hands of the German army ended up in concentration camps; none of those taken by the Italians suffered the same fate. Yet the protectors of the Jews were no philo-Semites, nor were they (often) great respecters of human life. Some of those same officers had sanctioned savage atrocities against Ethiopians and Arabs in the years before the war. Jonathan Steinberg uses this rem...

THE SUNDAY TIMES AND ECONOMIST BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2016'Hugely impressive... Wilson is an assured guide through the millennium-long labyrinth of papal-imperial relations' Literary ReviewA great, sprawling, ancient and unique entity, the Holy Roman Empire, from its founding by Charlemagne to its destruction by Napoleon a millennium later, formed the heart of Europe. It was a great engine for inventions and ideas, it ...

A lively and fascinating narrative history about the birth of the modern world.Beginning in the heady days just after the First Crusade, this volume—the third in the series that began with The History of the Ancient World and The History of the Medieval World—chronicles the contradictions of a world in transition.Popes continue to preach crusade, but the hope of a Christian empire comes to a bloody end at the walls of Constantinople. Arist...

Justin Vovks In Destinys Hands is the heartbreaking story of five children of Austrias iconic empress, Maria Theresa, who watched as their royal worlds were ripped apart by tragedy and epic misfortunes. These are the stories of Joseph, whose disastrous reign forced Austria to the brink of civil war; Amalia, the brazen and scandalous duchess who married a boy-prince and died exiled and forgotten; Leopold, Maria Theresas unassuming second son, who was the envy of Europe until his tu...

The definitive biography of the great soldier-statesman by the acclaimed author of Churchill and The Last King of America—winner of the LA Times Book prize, finalist for the Plutarch prize, winner of the Fondation Napoleon prize and a New York Times bestseller“A thrilling tale of military and political genius… Roberts is an uncommonly gifted writer.” —The Washington PostAusterlitz, Borodino, Waterloo: his battles are amon...

The definitive history of Hitler and Stalin's politics of mass killing, explaining why Ukraine has been at the center of Western history for the last century, from the author of the international bestseller, On Tyranny**.**Americans call the Second World War "the Good War." But before it even began, America's ally Stalin had killed millions of his own citizens, and kept killing them during and after the war. Before Hitler was defeated, he ...