The Long Nineteenth Century: A History of Germany, 1780-1918

In the late eighteenth century, German-speaking Europe was a patchwork of principalities and lordships. Most people lived in the countryside, and just half survived until their late twenties. By the beginning of our own century, unified Germany was the most powerful state in Europe. No longer a provincial "land of poets and thinkers," the country had been transformed into an industrial and military giant with an advanced welfare system.
 The Long Nineteenth Century: A History of Germany, 1780-1918, is a masterful account of this transformation.