Kaiser Wilhelm II is one of the key figures in the history of twentieth- century Europe: King of Prussia and German Emperor from 1888 to the collapse of Germany in 1918 and a crucial player in the events that led to the outbreak of World War I. In Kaiser Wilhelm Chris Clark follows the Kaiser's political career from his youth at the Hohenzollern court through the turbulent peacetime decades of the Wilhelmine era into global war and exile. Through original research Clark presents a new interpretation of this controversial monarch, focussing on the real impact on Germany of his forty-year reign.