'The best biography of the Second Reich in years . It will undoubtedly become the essential account of this vitally important part of European history' Andrew Roberts Before 1871, Germany was not a nation but an idea. Its founder, Otto vonBismarck, had a formidable task at hand. How would he bring thirty-nineindividual states under the yoke of a single Kaiser, convincing proudPrussians, Bavarians and Rhinelanders to become Germans? Once united, could theyoung European nation wield enough power to rival the empires of Britain andFrance - all without destroying itself in the process? In a unique study of five decades that changed the course of modernhistory, Katja Hoyer tells the story of the German Empire from its violentbeginnings to its calamitous defeat in the First World War. It is a dramatictale of national self-discovery, social upheaval and realpolitik that ended, asit started, in blood and iron. 'Fluently written and convincingly argued, Blood and Iron is a brilliant account of an important period of history, and one that marks the arrival of a major new talent' Daily Telegraph.