Despite surging interest in early modern pamphlets, political historians of the Dutch Republic, arguably the frontrunner in pamphleteering, have yet to explore their nature and relevance in depth. Rather than treating pamphlets as reflecting public opinion, or dismissing them as political froth, this volume aims to understand pamphlets as political actors in their own right. The articles focus on the function of a pamphlet, the pamphlet as a political actor, and the relationship between pamphlets and public opinion. Articles deal with these questions systematically while chronologically...

Many historians consider the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War in 1648, to mark a watershed in European international relations. It is generally agreed that Westphalia brought to an end more than a century of religious conflicts and marked the beginning of a new era in which secular power politics was the prime motivating factor in international relations and warfare. The purpose of this volume is to question this assumption and reconceptualise the relationship between war, foreign policy and religion during the period 1648 to 1713. Some of the contributions to the volume...