Overview

Many have viewed Kaiser Wilhelm II as having personally ruled Germany, dominating its politics, and choreographing its ambitious leap to global power. But how accurate is this picture?As The Kaiser and the Colonies shows, Wilhelm II was a constitutional monarch like many other crowned heads of Europe. Rather than an expression of Wilhelm II's personal rule, Germany's global empire and its Weltpolitik had their origins in the political and economic changes undergone by the nation as German commerce and industry strained to globalise alongside other European nations.More central to Germany's imperial processes than an emperor who reigned but did not rule were the numerous monarchs around the world with whom the German Empire came into contact. In Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, kings, sultans and other paramount leaders both resisted and accommodated Germany's ambitions as they charted their own course through the era of European imperialism. The result was often violent suppression, but also complex diplomatic negotiation, attempts at manipulation, and even mutual cooperation.In vivid detail drawn from archival holdings, The Kaiser and the Colonies examines the surprisingly muted role played by Wilhelm II in the German Empire and contrasts it to the lively, varied, and innovative responses to German imperialism from monarchs around the world.

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9780192897039

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Reviews

The Kaiser and the Colonies is a timely, deeply researched and engagingly written book about a topic of global relevance. It will be of considerable interest to students and scholars of colonial and imperial history, German and European history, international relations and world politics. * Hilary Howes, History Australia *

The Kaiser and the Colonies is a timely, deeply researched and engagingly written book about a topic of global relevance. It will be of considerable interest to students and scholars of colonial and imperial history, German and European history, international relations and world politics. * Hilary Howes, History Australia * This monograph highlights the importance of an agency-centered approach in addressing German colonial history... Fitzpatrick paints a complex picture without silencing and trivializing non-European rulers. Hopefully, future scholarship will equally complicate complex interactions and give agency to those still too often excluded. * Choice * Based on a mastery of the relevant literature and a wealth of archival research, Fitzpatrick's study provides the reader with a truly global offering of case studies, impressively demonstrating the reach of Weltpolitik. * Frank Lorenz Müller, German History * Fitzpatrick's sensitive evocation of the agency of indigenous rulers makes clear how they often managed to exploit German attention to magnify their own status, defeat local rivals or deflect settler exploitation. * Michael Ledger-Lomas, LRB *

The Kaiser and the Colonies is a timely, deeply researched and engagingly written book about a topic of global relevance. It will be of considerable interest to students and scholars of colonial and imperial history, German and European history, international relations and world politics. * Hilary Howes, History Australia * This monograph highlights the importance of an agency-centered approach in addressing German colonial history... Fitzpatrick paints a complex picture without silencing and trivializing non-European rulers. Hopefully, future scholarship will equally complicate complex interactions and give agency to those still too often excluded. * Choice * Based on a mastery of the relevant literature and a wealth of archival research, Fitzpatrick's study provides the reader with a truly global offering of case studies, impressively demonstrating the reach of Weltpolitik. * Frank Lorenz Müller, German History * Fitzpatrick's sensitive evocation of the agency of indigenous rulers makes clear how they often managed to exploit German attention to magnify their own status, defeat local rivals or deflect settler exploitation. * Michael Ledger-Lomas, LRB * The Kaiser and the Colonies presents an exceptionally timely, immaculately researched, and remarkably persuasive study which gives us reason to re-examine the enduring concept of Weltpolitik in late nineteenth century international relations. * Katherine Arnold, Cultural and Social History * Matthew Fitzpatrick has written an approachable monograph on the forms and boundaries of royal cosmopolitanism in the imperial interactions between the German Kaiser and royal figures from around the world that will serve as grounding for another wave of research on German imperialism. * Sean Andrew Wempe, Central European History * A superb work revisiting a major area of traditional Great power history but with an entirely new take, decolonising German colonial history and international relations.

Author Information

Matthew P Fitzpatrick is a professor of international history at Flinders University, Adelaide. He is the author of Purging the Empire: Mass Expulsions in Germany, 1871-1914, and Liberal Imperialism in Germany: Expansionism and Nationalism in Germany, 1848-1884. Winner of the Chester Penn Higby Prize, he has also been a Humboldt Fellow at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster, Germany.

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