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Bismarck’s War: The Franco-Prussian War and the Making of Modern Europe

byRachel Chrastil

Rachel Chrastil offers a vivid history of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the conflict that destroyed Napoleon III's empire, unified Germany, and reordered Europe. She follows military campaigns alongside sieges, occupation, diplomacy, journalism, civilian suffering, and revolutionary politics in Paris. The book explains how rapid victory gave way to prolonged violence and how competing memories shaped French and German nationalism. Chrastil presents the war as a hinge between older dynastic conflict and modern mass warfare, with consequences that fed imperial rivalry, militarization, and the path toward the First World War.

Publisher

Basic Books

Publication date

2023

Format

Print edition

Pages

—

ISBN

9781541604094