Originally published in 1967, this book discusses economic and constitutional developments and religious history in relation to their political consequences. Political theory is treated in two sections: one is devoted to the ideas current from 1789 to the ‘revolutionary year’ of 1848, and another to those of the Bismarckian era. The author used archival material to verify her analysis of such complicated questions as the operation of the Holy Roman Empire and Bismarckian foreign policy. Investigating the disappearance of the old Germany, in which medieval institutions still survived the book shows that the unification of Germany was not the final climax of German history, it appeared, at the time, to be.