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The Great Elector: Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia by Derek Mckay (Paperback, 2001)

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Product Description : The Great Elector: Frederick William of Brandenburg Prussia (Profiles in Power Series) ,In this first biography in English for fifty years, Derek McKay avoids the limitation of seeing Frederick William primarily as precursor of the 'Enlightened' Frederick the Great. Instead, he roots him firmly in his own time, a dynastic, protestant ruler like many another in Germany, but gifted with the toughness and opportunism to overcome the hostility of his local nobilities and of the surrounding great powers.

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In 1640 Frederick William, the 'Great Elector' of Brandenburg, inherited a minor territory devastated by the Thirty Years War. He would restore its fortunes, win its independence and build a powerful, extended state, centred on Berlin, which by the 1670s was strong enough to be chief mover in the league of protestant and imperial forces against Louis XIV. At his death (1688), Brandenburg and his other possessions - shortly to be reinvented as the kingdom of Prussia - was virtually an absolute monarchy, second only to Austria in the German lands. This long-awaited biography, the first in English for fifty years, avoids the limitation of seeing Frederick William primarily as precursor of the 'enlightened' Frederick the Great. Instead, it roots him firmly in his own time - a dynastic, protestant ruler like many another in Germany, but gifted with the toughness and opportunism to overcome the hostility of his local nobilities and of the surrounding great powers.A new biography of one of the greatest figures of European history. Derek McKay was formerly Senior Lecturer in International History at the London School of Economics.