Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman Bismarck: The Man and the Statesman is a biography of the German statesman Otto von Bismarck by the English historian A. J. P. Taylor. It was first published in the United Kingdom by Hamish Hamilton in June 1955. In a book review written in 1943, Taylor wrote that "to write a life of Bismarck within reasonable compass would be one of the greatest of historical achievements; but perhaps it is impossible. The material is overwhelming; and to make matters worse, Bismarck himself has left, in speeches, conversations or his reminiscences, versions of all the
Chancellor of Germany as in the Prussian tradition of, for instance, Hardenberg. In both of these aspects, the executive of the federation, and then empire, as it was formed in 1867 and 1871, was deliberately different from the Imperial Ministry of the revolutionary years 1848/49, which had been led by a prime minister elected by the National Assembly. In 1871, the concept of the federal chancellor was transferred to the executive of the newly formed German Empire, which now also contained the South German states. Here too, the terms of “chancellor” and “federal agency” (as opposed to “ministry” or “government”) suggested an (apparent)