The first comprehensive biography in English of the leader of the Bavarian Revolution and Republic of 1918/19, the first Jewish head of a European state and a man who embraced and embodied modernity. At the end of the First World War, German Jewish journalist, theater critic, and political activist Kurt Eisner (1867-1919), just released from prison, led a nonviolent revolution in Munich that deposed the monarchy and established the Bavarian Republic. Local head of the Independent Socialists, Eisner had been jailed for treason after organizing a munitions workers' strike to force an armistice. For a hundred days, as Germany spiraled into civil war, Eisner fought as head of state to preserve calm while implementing a peaceful transition to democracy and reforging international relations. He rejected another central German government dominated by Prussia in favor of a confederation of autonomous equals, a "United States of Germany." A Francophile, he sought ties with Paris in hope of containing Prussia. In February 1919, on the way to submit his government's resignation to the newly elected constitutionalassembly, Eisner was shot by a protofascist aristocrat, plunging Bavaria into political chaos from which Adolf Hitler would emerge. At the centenary of the Bavarian Revolution and Republic of 1918/19, this is the first comprehensive biography of Eisner written for an English-language audience. Albert Earle Gurganus is Professor Emeritus of Modern Languages at The Citadel. He is the author of The Art of Revolution: Kurt Eisner's Agitprop (Camden House, 1986).

"The author has seemingly mined every extant primary source in reconstructing his subject's 'modern life', from its beginnings in 1867 as the son of a Berlin purveyor of military-aristocratic finery to its tragic end on the streets of Munich... In its meticulous detail, Gurganus' biography is likely to be unsurpassed for many years." - JOURNAL OF MODERN JEWISH STUDIES

"Gurganus provides a detailed biography of the socialist intellectual Eisner, appreciating him not only in his role as minister-president of the Free State of Bavaria, which he himself proclaimed in 1918. The presentation of Eisner's life shows him in chronological fashion as a thinking, feeling, acting person of his time. Gurganus falls back on his research, which he began as far back as the 1970s, and provides a comprehensive evaluation of the archival sources. On hand of especially thorough reference to Eisner's numerous newspaper articles, Gurganus teases out his intellectual development and his political ideas." - GERMANISTIK

"It is important that an English-language study of the first Bavarian Minister-President is now available." - FRANCIA-RECENSIO

"[O]ne real strength of this book is that it confers a set of deeper strands to Eisner the public figure-what drove his politics, his journalism, and his relationships with others. . . . [A]n exemplary biography that takes us deep into the mind and context of its enigmatic subject. Gurganus's account is exhaustively researched without being overdetailed, and written with a captivating dramatic verve. . . . [T]he author more than meets his objective to cast his work for 'the broad band of English speakers' with a more general interest in early twentieth-century German history." - GERMAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY

"Compelling." - QUARTERLY REVIEW

"[A]n exhaustive biography of Eisner [that] provides detailed insight into the SPD's party life in late nineteenth-century Germany. . . . [S]hows the breadth of Eisner's erudition. . . . [W]e are offered a beautiful picture of [Eisner's] versatility as an intellectual . . . ." - H-SOCIALISMS

"[T]his book is a tour de force. It provides a treasure trove of information on one of the early twentieth-century German left's seminal and all too often forgotten figures." - JOURNAL OF MODERN HISTORY