Napoleon III. in seiner Zeit. Teil II: Das Verhängnis (in German)

 
Napoleon III in his epoch – part II: the downfall

From the publishers:
“Napoleon III., according to the historian Heinrich von Sybel, lived in silence and died in silence, and still today he is seen as mysterious figure. Posterity looks at him through the distorting mirror of the defeat at Sedan, and in his homeland, the last emperor is still considered as an outcast.
 
Heinrich Euler's extensive research revealed in the first part of his biography a portrait of the character of Napoleon and tried to consider Louis-Napoleon's life and rise in relationship with his epoch. In this the second part of Euler's detailed and thoroughly researched biography, we see the descent into the war with Prussia. Another noteworthy feature of this book is the discussion of the development of the internal structure of the Second Empire and of its transformation.
 
Whilst death intervened before Euler was able to finish his work, this volume nevertheless fills in significant gaps in the scholarly history of Napoleon III and shows how the last French emperor was probably the only statesman of his time to interpret correctly contemporary social movements and the problematic of modern progress.”