August der Starke

From the acclaimed author of The Pursuit of Glory and Frederick the Great, a riotous biography of the charismatic ruler of 18th-century Poland and Saxony - and his catastrophic reign.<BR><BR>Winner of the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography 2025 <BR>Shortlisted for the 2025 Apollo Book of the Year Award<BR><BR>'It's been a superb year for history but Augustus the Strong ranks up there with the very very best! I cant recommend it strongly enough' - Simon Sebag-Montefiore<BR><BR>'The wonderful story of one of the worst monarchs in European history, told with enormous wit and scholarship by a supremely talented historian. If you have the slightest interest in Germans, Poles, porcelain, jewels, the Enlightenment, military disasters or the pleasures of fox-tossing, then this is the book for you' - Dominic Sandbrook<BR><BR>Augustus is one of the great what-ifs of the 18th century. He could have turned the accident of ruling two major realms into the basis for a powerful European state - a bulwark against the Russians and a block on Prussian expansion. Alas, there was no opportunity Augustus did not waste and no decision he did not get wrong. By the time of his death Poland was fatally damaged and would subsequently disappear as an independent state until the 20th century.<BR><BR>Tim Blanning's wonderfully entertaining and original new book is a study in failed statecraft, showing how a ruler can shape history as much by incompetence as brilliance. Augustus's posthumous sobriquet 'The Strong' referred not to any political accomplishment, but to his legendary physical strength and sexual athleticism.<BR><BR>Yet he was also one of the great creative artists of the age, combining driving energy, exquisite taste and apparently boundless resources to master-mind the creation of peerless Dresden, the baroque jewel of jewels. Augustus the Strong brilliantly evokes this time of opulence and excess, decadence and folly.

'Highly readable and deeply researched' - Andrew Roberts<BR> <BR>'Masterful ... brilliantly brings to life one of the most complex characters of modern European history' - Sunday Telegraph<BR><BR>'It is sure to be the standard English-language account for many years. It instructs; it entertains; and it surprises' - Philip Mansel, The Spectator<BR><BR><BR>Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, dominated the eighteenth century in the same way that Napoleon dominated the start of the nineteenth. He was a force of nature, a ruthless, brilliant, charismatic military commander, a monarch of exceptional energy and talent, a gifted composer, performer, poet and philosopher, and a discerning patron of artists, architects and writers, most famously Voltaire. From the very start of his reign he was an intensely divisive figure - fascinating even to those who hated him.<BR><BR>Tim Blanning's brilliant new biography captures Frederick's vitality, complexity and flawed genius better than any previous writer. He also recreates a remarkable era, the last flowering of the old regime that would be swept away almost immediately after Frederick's death by the French Revolution. <BR><BR>Equally at home on the battlefield or in the music room at Frederick's extraordinary miniature palace of Sanssouci, Blanning draws on a lifetime's immersion in the eighteenth century to present him in the round, with new attention paid to his cultural self-fashioning, including his sexuality. Frederick's spectre has hung over Germany ever since, both as inspiration and warning - Blanning at last allows us to understand him in his own time.

Die Geburt des modernen Europas: ein Epochengemälde als 'Sternstunde der Geschichtsschreibung' (Literary Review)Tim Blannings Geschichte Europas erstreckt sich vom Ende des Dreißigjährigen Kriegs bis zum Wiener Kongress und zeichnet detailliert, höchst unterhaltsam und mit großer erzählerischer Kraft das Bild eines Zeitalters in tiefgreifendem Wandel - wirtschaftshistorisch, machtpolitisch, kulturell, militärisch. Neben großen Persönlichkeiten wie Louis XIV., Friedrich II., Napoleon, Voltaire oder Newton und den Eliten an Europas Höfen kommen immer wieder auch die Alltagssorgen und Nöte der niederen Stände in den Blick, die sich schließlich in der Französischen Revolution Bahn brechen sollten. Die Leichtigkeit, mit der Blanning die Perspektive zwischen den Kulturen wechselt, und die Fülle der verarbeiteten Fakten weisen den Autor als Meister seines Fachs und einen der bedeutendsten Historiker unserer Zeit aus. 'Eine Sternstunde der Geschichtsschreibung' Literary ReviewMit 30 zum Teil farbigen AbbildungenAusstattung: Mit 30 z.T. farbigen Abbildungen

'Let the nations rejoice: this history of Europe is a truly glorious book' John Adamson, Sunday Times<BR><BR>The Pursuit of Glory brings to life one of the most extraordinary periods in European history - from the battered, introvert continent after the Thirty Years War to the dynamic one that experienced the French Revolution and the wars of Napoleon. Tim Blanning depicts the lives of ordinary people and the dominant personalities of the age (Louis XIV, Frederick the Great, Napoleon), and explores an era of almost unprecedented change, growth and cultural, political and technological ferment that shaped the societies and economies of entire countries.

Mit feiner britischer Ironie fängt Tim Blanning das Genie des berühmtesten preußischen Königs, seine Vitalität und komplexe Persönlichkeit ebenso ein wie das Ungeheuer Friedrich mit seinen fatalen Engstirnigkeiten und Borniertheiten. Die Homosexualität des Herrschers wird hier erstmals in einer großen Biographie ohne Verdruckstheiten angesprochen. Gleichermaßen vertraut mit Friedrichs Schlachten wie mit dem ästhetischen Programm von Schloss Sanssouci, schöpft Blannings Biographie aus einer lebenslangen Beschäftigung mit dem 18. Jahrhundert und dem Ancien Régime, das schon wenige Jahre nach Friedrichs Tod mit der Französischen Revolution an sein Ende kommen wird.