Prussia is present in the media at regular intervals and scientific works appear in constant succession; Exhibitions achieve high visitor numbers and Christopher Clark's book on Prussia became a bestseller. The present volume pursues an innovative concept in several respects: In seven chapters it deals with foreign policy, the economy, social groups, culture, education and science as well as the transnational connections of Prussia. Hartwin Spenkuch does not repeat the conciliatory considerations or even idealizations of earlier overall representations. Instead, using current research findings, he clearly highlights the different shades of gray. For Prussia was often characterized by political conflicts, social differences and regional disparities. Nevertheless, the marginal Electorate of Brandenburg-Prussia managed to rise to a great power, industrialization and an impressive development of education and science. The aim of the book is to systematically explain all of this with a stringent root cause analysis. In particular, it examines the role of the state as a ruling apparatus and modernization agent, without neglecting the interplay with social initiatives. From an intra-German and European comparative perspective, the author tries in the "acid bath of comparison" (H.-U. Wehler) to work out causal factors and to gain a basis for a historically adequate judgment. Prussia was historically significant: its economic history, its state formation, its dealings with minorities, its (non-) integration of regions, its political lines of conflict provide illustrative material and even teaching examples for basic questions of state and social order that are still current today.