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Title: More a timeline than a biography
Review: Clearly Giles MacDonagh did a great deal of research for this book. It shows on every page. Unfortunately, what we get is more a straightforward, day-by-day description of Wilhelm II's life than a real biography. Very little background information or interpretation makes it onto the page. As the bones for a first-rate biography, it seems to be excellent. But I was left with no real understanding of the Kaiser or his critically important times. Perhaps someday Mr. MacDonagh will revisit the text and flesh it out into a real biography, rather than a "facts on file" type of timeline. Clearly he is complete in his research (after a while, I began to think that he could probably tell us what the Kaiser had for breakfast on October 13, 1911) but the book lacks real style and needs a good editor.
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