Books by "Frank Lorenz Müller"
2 books found
This book offers the first-ever scholarly study of Wilhelm I as Germany’s first Kaiser. For decades, Wilhelm has been dismissed by historians as a political nullity and an unwilling imperial figurehead, who was perpetually overruled by chancellor Otto von Bismarck. As a result, scholars concluded that the imperial role did not reach maturity until the accession of Wilhelm II. This book challenges this assumption by analysing how Wilhelm used self-staging to effectuate his role as German emperor and set the precedent for his successors, Friedrich III and Wilhelm II. It explores how he oversaw and intervened in the political and military decision-making processes, his use of politics of history, his understanding and practicing of the imperial role towards other German states and dynasties, his self-presentation in the new German capital, and how his public persona was distorted in German cultural memory after his death in 1888. The book draws on a wealth of previously unexplored sources, including material from Wilhelm’s personal archive, the archives of the Hohenzollern monarchy, the Prussian state, and local archives. It offers a much-needed reassessment of Wilhelm I and makes an important contribution to debates on the role of the Kaiser in German politics, the political system, and culture of the early German nation state, and how the Hohenzollern monarchy adapted to the demands of generating popular support for its new German imperial role.
Environmental challenges are defining the twenty-first century. To fully understand ongoing debates about our current crises—climate change, loss of biological diversity, pollution, extinction, resource woes—means revisiting their origins, in all their complexity. With this ambitious, highly original contribution to the environmental history of global modernity, Frank Uekötter considers the many ways humans have had an impact on their physical environment throughout history. Ours is not a one-way trajectory to sudden collapse, he argues, but rather death by a thousand cuts. The many paths we’ve forged to arrive in our current predicament, from agriculture to industry to infrastructure, must be considered collectively if we are to stay afloat in what Uekötter describes as a vortex: a powerful metaphor for the flow of history, capturing the momentum and the many crosscurrents that swept people and environments along. His book invites us to look at environmental challenges from multiple perspectives, including all the twists and turns that have helped to create the mess we find ourselves in. Uekötter has written a world history for an age where things are falling apart: where we know what lies ahead and are equipped with the right tools—technological and otherwise—and plenty of experience to deal with environmental challenges, but somehow fail to get our affairs in order.