This well-researched study of government initiatives in Prussia following the revolutions of 1848–1849 features two underexamined statemen: Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg and Baron Otto Theodor von Manteuffel. Although the book focuses on the 1850s as a watershed period in state building, it links government policies back to the Stein-Hardenberg Reforms during the Napoleonic Wars and looks forward to initiatives under Otto von Bismarck, offering new insights into the theme of continuity in German history as well as the role of Prussian state building prior to unification.

Anna Ross's focused study of the state's response to the revolution is not a rehash of conservative reaction; rather, her work adds to several recent innovative studies that reevaluate conservative politics and policies to highlight flexibility, pragmatism, and bureaucratic reform. Instead of ideologically charged politics, Ross argues that Brandenburg and Manteuffel sought to restore the monarchy as they consolidated and expanded state power by pragmatically recasting bureaucratic structures. Unlike earlier historians who judged conservative reforms in Prussia as defensive modernization or simply unintended modernization, Ross casts these efforts as realistic reform to ensure social order and political stability for the kingdom.

Ross effectively underscores Manteuffel's pragmatic acceptance of constitutionalism as a tool to win public confidence without weakening the monarchy. Like conservatives in Frederick Wilhelm IV's court, Brandenburg and Manteuffel were not fans of a constitution, but both recognized the necessity of bringing Prussia into the constitutional era and controlling structural changes within the government. Likewise, they understood the importance of information on the nature of the Prussian state that spanned from the Rhineland to East Prussia to better manage growing social tensions, evident during the recent revolutionary upheaval. The Prussian Central Statistical Office and Meteorological Institute was crucial for collecting and disseminating data to reform structures and administrative practices.

Ross's chapter on the Prussian state's engagement with urban communities clearly presents the reliance of the government's policies and procedures on statistical information. Designed to undercut revolutionary discord in crowded cities, Manteuffel's policies sought to extend the reach and power of the state into Prussian urban life. His introduction of the Municipal Ordinance in 1850—developed by Baron von Stein in 1808—increased effective administration and energetic policing. Ross highlights the Berlin Model and the fascinating influence of Carl Ludwig Friedrich von Hinckeledey to demonstrate the strong link between statistical data and urban reforms. In this case, information about crowded neighborhoods generated new building policies and ordinances enforced by the police to prevent overcrowding and a public health crisis. Once the purview of a self-governing urban administration, housing and building oversight, the widening and cleaning of streets, the regulation and containment of brothels, the centralized jurisdiction over new advertising columns to control posters and the expansion of the city fell to police and state control during the 1850s. In these respects, the public, especially affluent Berliners, viewed police conduct favorably.

Ross emphasizes pragmatic structural changes in additional chapters on judicial and penal reforms, agricultural legislation, and commercial and communication innovations. These new policies tended to favor the professional classes, not the nobility. In addition to the standardization and professionalization of court structures, the establishment of state, appeal, district, and jury courts transformed the judicial terrain and impeded traditional judicial privileges of the nobility. Similarly, Manteuffel's redrafting of the redemption law and regulation law continued the work of the October Edict of 1807 to free Prussia's remaining peasants from manorial obligations. State control over trade advanced, as the state used the Ministry of Trade to professionalize commerce and expand the telegraph system. State investment in commercial infrastructure also contributed to state building that accelerated Prussia's economic expansion in the following decades.

Ross's chapter on the press and public opinion, however, is less about reform and more about management. Instead of relying on repressive censorship to control Prussia's varied and highly politicized media, Manteuffel sought to manage the expanding press. Part of this process required information gathering and led to the establishment of the press office that reviewed and reported on dailies from across Prussia and Europe. In addition, this office explored new avenues to influence public opinion in favor of the government. The bimonthly publication of the Mittheilungen des statistischen Bureau's in Berlin disseminated government data from various ministries, especially in the form of statistics to demonstrate effective governance and progressive state building. Furthermore, Ross points out that other papers often reprinted these statistics, thereby expanding the state's positive message and legitimizing the government's pragmatic policies. The importance of sharing government-friendly statistical data, she notes, is that the “numbers appeared to be a seemingly neutral source to support realistic policies” (71).

Ross's study of conservative politics offers important insights on Prussia's post-revolutionary era. Appointed to restore the monarchy and strengthen the state, Brandenburg and Manteuffel often frustrated the king and the ultraconservatives at court by rejecting their ideological agendas in favor of pragmatic solutions that would ultimately extend the power of the state across Prussian society. The two statesmen drew on reforms from the Napoleonic era, which consequently diminished noble privilege and their policies gained support from the professional classes. Manteuffel employed an effective bureaucracy armed with useful data, and expanded state regulation to ensure social stability. These pragmatic state-building policies predated Bismarck's Realpolitik. For this reason, Ross sees the 1850s as an overlooked and crucial watershed of state intervention and engagement in Prussian society.

Ross also explores similar pragmatic conservative policies across the German Confederation and in other European states throughout her study. Her approach provides a context for her examination of Prussia as well as suggests that the pragmatism of Brandenburg and Manteuffel embodied a shared European response to the revolutions of 1848 and political upheaval. This thorough study of the work of key statesmen in the 1850s makes important contributions to our understanding of continuity in nineteenth-century state building as it heightens our understanding of post-revolutionary conservatism in action.