ISBN10: 0192897039, ISBN13: 9780192897039, [publisher: OUP OXFORD 2022-02-17, Oxford] Hardcover Language: ENG
[London, United Kingdom] [Publication Year: 2022]

ISBN10: 0192897039, ISBN13: 9780192897039, [publisher: Oxford University Press, Oxford] Hardcover Hardcover. 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 thepolitical 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 anemperor 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 vividdetail 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 innovativeresponses to German imperialism from monarchs around the world. ...
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