Thomas Carlyle turns the early history of Brandenburg, Prussia, and Franconian Germany into a sweeping drama of frontier-making, faith, and power. From a half-mythic northern wilderness of forests, marshes, migrating tribes, and forgotten wars, he traces the slow emergence of political order, culminating in Henry the Fowler's capture of Brannibor in 928 and the birth of Brandenburg as a fortified march. Henry appears as the model ruler: practical, martial, and farsighted, subduing dukes, repelling Hungarians, organizing border defense, and giving real purpose to the office of markgrave before later honors grow hollow. The story then moves east to heathen Prussia, a marshy land of amber, cattle, and stubborn pagan resistance, where the zeal of Adalbert of Prague ends in martyrdom. His life and death become a meditation on sanctity, violence, and memory, while Conrad's penitence and entry into the Teutonic Order deepen the book's interest in moral transformation. Marburg, with its relics and solemn Church of St. Elizabeth, stands as a haunted center of medieval devotion, and the tale finally widens into dynastic upheaval, from Otto of Meran's violent death to the redistribution of lands that prepares the rise of the Hohenzollerns. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.