Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947

I am finally finished! I've been wanting to read this book for awhile and I'm glad I did.

The book is relatively broad in scope. It is not the history of the Hohenzollern family but rather what was happening in Prussia from 1600 to 1947. So you obviously see a lot of monarchial history (such as the biographies of the various Electors of Brandenburg, Kings in Prussia and Kings of Prussia) but also religious history, social history and some military history. For a book on Prussia you would think military history would be a bigger topic but he seemed more interested in social history such as talking about the Jewish community of Prussia. I noticed (perhaps due to my personal biases) that after the Napoleonic Wars monarchial history tends to take backstage to the affairs of Minister-Presidents and Chancellors. As a result information on Friedrich Wilhelm IV, Wilhelm I and Wilhelm II is a lot shorter than what Friedrich Wilhelm, Friedrich Wilhelm I and Friedrich II got. I wasn't a huge fan of his post-WW1 writing and it definitely seems that his higher quality writing was before WW1. Nonetheless every chapter was good and worthy of reading. There was also a lack of historiography and I really only noticed a couple overt mentions to other historians in the field. Nonetheless, I would recommend to anyone with an interest in German or European history.