This is the first study in English of the reign of Frederick William IV, King of Prussia from 1840 to 1861 and the most important German monarch in the century between 1786 and 1888. It focuses on monarchial structures and institutions and describing the ways in which conservative elites successfully adapted to revolutionary change.

This is the first full-scale study in English of the reign of Frederick William IV, King of Prussia from 1840 to 1861, and arguably the most important German monarch in the century between the death of Frederick the Great and the accession of William II. Dismissed by others as a Romantic reactionary, Frederick William comes through in this study as a modern and 'successful' monarch. Not strictly a biography, the book also focuses on the structures, institutions, and transformations of the Prussian monarchial system during a time of revolutionary change. Through his analysis of the Prussian state, this work enriches our sense of the structures of the nineteenth-century European state, and of the elites who inhabited and adapted to these states.

clearly written and splendidly researched ... Barclay tells the King's story well. His opening chapter on the Prussian monarchy in its European context is a model of comparative analysis, from which every student of nineteenth-century Europe can benefit. He adds useful details to the rich historiography of the revolution and increases our knowledge of the usually neglected era of reaction.