Stephan Freund and Matthias Puhle, Otto der Grosse 912–973: Kaiser der Römer, König der Völker. Regensburg: Verlag Schnell and Steiner, 2023, pp. 255.

Otto I (reigned 936–973) received the honorific “the Great” (Magnus) in his own day and was considered one of the most successful and important rulers of the German kingdom by both medieval writers and modern scholars dating back to the development of history as a university discipline in mid-nineteenth century Germany. Otto has benefitted from enormous scholarly as well as popular attention, but the nature of his rule, the type of polity he led, and the ultimate impact that he had on the development of the German kingdom remain highly debated questions. This volume by Stephan Freund and Matthias Puhle is intended expressly for an interested general public and was published to coincide with the 1050th anniversary of Otto I’s death at the imperial palace of Memleben on 7 May 973. Freund and Puhle, both of whom have published extensively on early and high medieval German history, intend to offer their readers an easily accessible entrée to the scholarly state of the questions regarding Otto’s life and times.