This is the most important single volume on Frederick and his reign (1740-86) to be published since the First World War. It now appears in English for the first time, in a slightly abbreviated version of the German original. It is not a conventional biography: rather, it is a series of studies of the central aspects of the reign, each with new and exciting perceptions to offer, which, taken together, make a major contribution to our understanding of Prussia, Europe and the Enlightenment in the second half of the eighteenth century.