“[An] admirably comprehensive and beautifully written study of William II’s reign.” ―Gordon A . Craig What did it mean for Germany, and the world, to have William II on the throne for the First World War? In The Kaiser and His Times , Michael Balfour analyzes the social, constitutional, and economic forces at work in imperial Germany, and sets the complex and disputed character of the Kaiser, who occupied such a central position in the three decades before 1918, in the context of his family background and the history of Germany.