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Many have viewed Kaiser Wilhelm II as having personally ruled Germany, dominating its politics, and choreographing its ambitious leap to global power. But how accurate is this picture? As The Kaiser and the Colonies shows, Wilhelm II was a constitutional monarch like many other crowned heads of Europe. Rather than an expression of Wilhelm II's personal rule, Germany's global empire and its Weltpolitik had their origins in the political and economic changes undergone by the nation as German commerce and industry strained to globalise alongside other European nations. More central to Germany's imperial processes than an emperor who reigned but did not rule were the numerous monarchs around the world with whom the German Empire came into contact. In Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, kings, sultans and other paramount leaders both resisted and accommodated Germany's ambitions as they charted their own course through the era of European imperialism. The result was often violent suppression, but also complex diplomatic negotiation, attempts at manipulation, and even mutual cooperation. In vivid detail drawn from archival holdings, The Kaiser and the Colonies examines the surprisingly muted role played by Wilhelm II in the German Empire and contrasts it to the lively, varied, and innovative responses to German imperialism from monarchs around the world.
List of contents
- Introduction: Royal Cosmopolitanism in the Age of Empire
- Part I: Monarchy in the Metropole
- 1: A Siamese Charm Offensive
- 2: In Search of a German Hong Kong
- 3: A Pilgrim to the Holy Land
- 4: Kowtowing before the Kaiser
- 5: The 'Kaiser's Holocaust' in Africa?
- 6: Defending a Sovereign Sultan
- Part II: Monarchy beyond the Metropole
- 7: Company Rule and the Sultan of Zanzibar
- 8: Swapping a Sultanate for an Island
- 9: Paramountcy in German Southwest Africa
- 10: The Limits of Royal Reciprocity
- 11: The Kaiser's Birthday Present
- 12: A Visit to the King of Samoa
- 13: Hanging a King
- Conclusion
About the author
Matthew P Fitzpatrick is a professor of international history at Flinders University, Adelaide. He is the author of Purging the Empire: Mass Expulsions in Germany, 1871-1914, and Liberal Imperialism in Germany: Expansionism and Nationalism in Germany, 1848-1884. Winner of the Chester Penn Higby Prize, he has also been a Humboldt Fellow at the Westphalian Wilhelms University in Münster, Germany.
Summary
Many view Kaiser Wilhelm II as having personally ruled Germany, dominating its politics, and choreographing its leap to global power, but The Kaiser and the Colonies shows that he played a surprisingly muted role in the German Empire in contrast to the lively, varied, innovative responses to German imperialism from monarchs around the world.
Additional text
A superb work revisiting a major area of traditional Great power history but with an entirely new take, decolonising German colonial history and international relations.
