Germany and the Holy Roman Empire: Volume II: The Peace of Westphalia to the Dissolution of the Reich, 1648-1806

ISBN-13: 9780199688838 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 784 str.

Joachim Whaley

Opis

Germany and the Holy Roman Empire offers a striking new interpretation of a crucial era in German and European history, from the great reforms of 1495-1500 to the dissolution of the Reich in 1806. Over two volumes, Joachim Whaley rejects the notion that this was a long period of decline, and shows instead how imperial institutions developed in response to the crises of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, notably the Reformation and Thirty Years War. The impact of international developments on the Reich is also examined.

Volume II begins with the Peace of Westphalia and concludes with the dissolution of the Reich. Whaley analyses the remarkable resurgence of the Reich after the Thirty Years War, which saw the Habsburg emperors achieve a new position of power and influence and which enabled the Reich to withstand the military threats posed by France and the Turks in the later seventeenth century. He gives a rich account of topics such as Pietism and baroque Catholicism, the German enlightenment, and the impact on the Empire and its territories of the French Revolution and Napolean. Whaley emphasizes the continuing viability of the Reich's institutions to the end, and the vitality of a political culture of freedom that has been routinely underestimated by historians of modern Germany.

Recenzje

Joachim Whaley's two volumes on the Holy Roman Empire constitute what is undoubtedly the best work on the topic currently available on the European market ... Whaley surpasses all [others] ... He thus overcomes the prevalent tendency of writing the history of the Empire in separate political, constitutional, religious and economic terms ... he displays an astonishing eye for detail ... No other piece of scholarship can match the attention to detail paid to such a wide variety of different aspects of the history of the Holy Roman Empire as can be found in Whaley's magnum opus. Whaley stands out, as his predecessors in writing the history of the Empire had primarily concentrated on political history alone.

O autorze

Joachim Whaley read History at Christ's College Cambridge. He held Fellowships in History at Christ's College and Robinson College before becoming a Lecturer in German in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge, where he teaches German history, thought, and language. He is the author of Religious Toleration and Social Change in Hamburg 1529-1819 and of numerous articles on early modern and modern German history. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1984, and Fellow of the British Academy in 2015.