Waite uses a psychological approach to throw light on the personal lives and politics of Wilhelm II and Adolf Hitler. He compares their intellectual worlds, their wartime strategies, and their tortured childhoods. Both men, we discover, had dual personalities - they could be both cruel and kind, cowardly and brave, grandiose and vulnerable. Both exhibited homosexual tendencies, yet were strongly attractive to women.

We see how the personal pathologies of these two men heavily influenced the public policies that resulted in catastrophe. This is a work of scholarship that will fascinate historians, psychologists, and general readers alike.