"This important book advances a new interpretation of the Holy Roman Empire that promises to free analyses of the empire's inner workings from the burdens of contemporary political memory. Stollberg-Rilinger makes the imperial political system, endlessly complex though it was, accessible and comprehensible to a wider audience."--David M. Luebke, author of Hometown Religion: Regimes of Coexistence in Early Modern Westphalia
Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger is professor and chair of early modern history at the University of Münster in Germany. Her many books include her acclaimed biography of Maria Theresa, which won Germany's prestigious Leipzig Book Fair Prize in 2017, and The Emperor's Old Clothes: Constitutional History and the Symbolic Language of the Holy Roman Empire.