Reading List: Bismarck - The Story of a Fighter

When I was in high school I wrote a paper about a German guy named Otto von Bismarck. Somehow I’ve been fascinated with his story ever since then, so when I came across this book I couldn’t not buy it.

Six hundred and thirty-five pages is a lot of pages and I know that none of you want to hear all the details about his life, so I won’t bore you with those. Instead, allow me to summarize for you what I learned and why it matters

Bismarck was a political genius. According to the record kept by this author, all of the predictions that Bismarck made after he was forced out of office by William II were fulfilled. His political foresight and discernment were unequaled in Europe.

I was also struck by the similarities between Bismarck and Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s Secretary of State and the last long biography I read. They were both so isolated, conducting their diplomacy by the most secretive routes. And in both of their cases, things went terribly wrong. Secrecy led to the Watergate scandal for Kissinger; for Bismarck, the entire political structure that he built slowly began to crumble when he left office.

I think Bismarck’s power is what really fascinates me about him. He single-handedly built an entire governmental structure, building an empire out of hundreds of city-states. That’s a huge deal. But as soon as he was no longer holding the reigns, his treaties fell apart and led to the disaster that became World War I. And the position of absolute power that he created for himself was inherited by Hitler, who brought about the Nazi regime and World War II. The story of any man who has the ability not only to wield that power but to construct it from nothing is worth reading any day of the week.

This book is a lot different than the other books I’ve written about here. Completely different genre, and way more difficult too lol. But I really did love it.

I highly HIGHLY recommend reading something that you find interesting out of nothing but sheer curiosity. Maybe I’ll never need any of the information I gained from reading this book. But man am I glad I read it, because I enjoyed it immensely. Oddly enough, it really was fun.