This stylish and highly entertaining account of the origins of the Franco-Dutch War of 1672 is based on massive archival researches covering twelve countries. Contrary to the accepted historical opinion that there was a meeting of minds within Louis XIV??'s conseil d???en haut over the desirability of the war, Professor Sonnino chronicles a story of bitter division, in the course of which the contrasting personalities of the king and of his most intimate advisors emerge in vivid detail. Racine once eulogized the war as a brilliantly executed venture which put the insolent Dutch in their...

This book uses the Breton experience to address two fundamental historiographical issues: the meaning of absolutism and the nature of early-modern French society. It abandons the old framework that opposed orders to classes, and instead seeks to find the central meaning of the evolution of the French state in the maintenance of order (especially the preservation of property). Professor Collins's main purpose, illustrated by his fusion of economic, social and institutional approaches, is to combine social and political/institutional history, so long separated in works on this field. Contrary...

The publication of The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road in 1972 marked the birth of the "new military history," which emphasized military organization--mobilization, pay, supply, morale and, above all, logistics--rather than military "events" such as sieges and battles. Constantly cited since its first publication in English (with translations into Spanish and Dutch), this revised updated second edition includes new sources and references but otherwise remains faithful to the original edition. First Edition Hb (1972): 0-521-08462-8 First Edition Pb (1975): 0-521-09907-2

Currently, privatization and regulatory reform are often viewed as the solution to the problem of poor performance by telecommunications and other public utilities. This volume argues that these high expectations may not always be met because of the way a country's institutions and systems interact.

This book offers a new paradigm of the history of the German nobility in the early modern period. It shows that, contrary to the prevailing view, the nobility was not in a period of crisis that facilitated the rise of the state. Rather, the nobility underwent a process of social stratification in the wake of the growth of the state. This process led to the formation of an elite of wealthy noble families on whose cooperation the state depended. This alliance, and not a presumed partnership between rulers and bourgeoisie, was the driving force in early modern Germany.

The Quest for Compromise is an interdisciplinary study of an imperial court in late-sixteenth-century Vienna, and a detailed examination of a fascinating moment of religious moderation. It investigates the rise and fall of an irenic movement through four individuals: an Italian artist (Jacopo Strada), a Silesian physician (Johannis Crato), a Dutch librarian (Hugo Blotius) and a German soldier (Lazarus von Schwendi), who sought peace and accommodation through a wide range of cultural, intellectual and political activity.

This book focuses on the history of Royal Prussia--the "other Prussia"--which was part of the Polish state from 1454 to 1793. It studies the complex relationship between Germans and Slavs in the Polish-Prussian borderlands, and demonstrates the importance of national and historical myth-making for power politics. Analyzing the rivalry between the multinational, constitutionalist Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and its centralized, dynastic neighbor Brandenburg-Prussia, this study contributes to our understanding of the process of early modern nation-building and the formation of national...

The most informed reference book on nineteenth-century music currently available, this comprehensive overview of music in the nineteenth century draws on the most recent scholarship in the field. Essays investigate the intellectual and socio-political history of the time, and examine topics such as nations and nationalism, the emergent concept of an avant garde, and musical styles and languages at the turn of the century. It contains a detailed chronology, and extensive glossaries.

In what is sometimes called the age of absolutism, Castilian nobles and commoners, tribunes and towns, were to a considerable degree able to resist and shape royal commands. This is a study of one such form of resistance: the opposition to military levies in the 1630s and 1640s. The assurance with which such a range of people addressed the crown reveals a society in which a great number of people had a great deal to say about the definition and use of political power.

Reilly analyzes the design of electoral systems for divided societies, examining various divided societies which utilize "vote-pooling" electoral systems--including Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Northern Ireland and Fiji. He shows that political institutions which encourage the development of broad-based, aggregative political parties and where campaigning politicians have incentives to attract votes from a range of ethnic groups can, under certain conditions, encourage a moderate, accommodatory political competition and thus influence the trajectory of democratization in transitional states....