Well written look at Bismarck. It is not a complete and thorough biography, which is by design. The author was very adept at relating history and personalities. Bismarck was a force across Europe throughout his time in power and while he kept war to a minimum, the author also points out that he laid the foundation for 2 world wars, in major part. Good reading. ( )

Edward Crankshaw's Bismarck was a pedantic and overly righteous work. The author assumed that the reader knew a significant amount about 18th century Europe and parliamentary procedure, thus making it an incredibly tough read. Along with the confusing writing style, the author enjoyed going off on tangents in addition to random factoids on minor characters of the time period. Bismarck himself was more of a downtrodden libertarian that an idealist. Its seems that there is more to Bismarck than discussed in this book but with the obvious lack of literature on the man there is little to draw from. If anything, a revision of this work is needed. There is surprisingly little literature on such an interesting an important character of world history. ( )

This is the single volume I have just on Bismarck in English so for the time being I will have to assume it is the best available.