The year 2006 marked the bicentenary of two seminal events in German and French history: the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire that had encompassed much of Europe for over a millennium, and its replacement by a new, French-sponsored political order. The juxtaposition of the two empires in 1806 offers an ideal opportunity for a comparative approach to the transition towards modernity and the role of France and Germany in the construction of Europe. The rapidity of these changes suggests a major turning point, to some even the birth of modernity itself, as Napoleon, the inheritor of the dynamic, rationalising traditions of the French Revolution, triumphed over a socio-political order that had its roots in the early middle ages and claimed direct descent from the ancient Roman Empire. This volume indicates that the contrast is considerably more complex than is commonly assumed, and offers the first comparative treatment of the key themes of Empire, monarchy, political cultures, feudalism, war and military institutions, nationalism and identity, and everyday experience.