This substantial collection of specially commissioned chapters addresses the theme of sovereignty and the sources and variety of political power in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe, from Russia to Spain and from the Italian peninsula to the Dutch Republic. A unifying theme, taken up in a substantial editorial introduction, is the determination to move away from cliches such as 'the rise of the modern state'. Instead, emphasis is placed upon the composite nature of early modern political structures and upon the significant number of bodies and individuals who were recognised as...