This volume provides an up-to-date and accessible guide to the diversity of current thinking on Imperial Germany.

• Offers a historiographical overview, spanning more than a century of works on the German Empire
• Guides readers through the main approaches, from 'personalist' to 'structuralist' and 'post-structuralist'
• Presents varying perspectives on gender, cultural history, foreign relations, colonialism, and war
• Explores the controversial historical reputations of Bismarck and Kaiser Wilhelm II
• Reflects the wide range of opinions on Imperial Germany held by historians today

Matthew Jefferies is Senior Lecturer in German History at the University of Manchester. He is the author of Imperial Culture in Germany, 1871-1918 (2003) and Politics and Culture in Wilhelmine Germany (1995).