I'm sorry if this is the wrong place, but could anybody here provide me with their favorite biography of Otto Van Bismarck? I am a layman with an interest in history, so something that balances readability with staying true to the source material would be great. I don't need anything too dense or too light.
The one by Lothar Gall is hold in high esteem in Germany. I believe there is an english translation.
Jonathan Steinberg's Bismarck:A Life is a recent biography that is relatively critical of the great man. Bismarck: A Political History by Edgar Feuchtwanger is a more balanced biography, albeit with little on his personal life. Bismarck by Katherine Lerman serves as a good introduction to the questions and debates academics have over the Iron Chancellor. Finally, even though it is aging and a tendency for pop psychoanalyzing, A. J. P. Taylor's Bismarck: The Man and Stateman is one of the best reads amongst the voluminous biographies out there.