What did it mean for Germany, and the world, to have William II on the throne for the First World War? In
The Kaiser and His Times
, Michael Balfour analyzes the social, constitutional, and economic forces at work in imperial Germany, and sets the complex and disputed character of the Kaiser, who occupied such a central position in the three decades before 1918, in the context of his family background and the history of Germany. Written with verve and style, and drawing on anecdotes and quotations that illuminate the major personages, the book gives an essential historical perspective to the gathering events of the early twentieth-century European history.