Suchergebnisse

In this new account of the emergence of a distinctive territorial state in early modern Germany, Robert von Friedeburg examines how the modern notion of state does not rest on the experience of a bureaucratic state-apparatus. It emerged to stabilize monarchy from dynastic insecurity and constrain it to protect the rule of law, subjects, and their lives and property. Against this background, Lutheran and neo-Aristotelian notions on the spiritual and material welfare of subjects dominating German debate interacted with Western European arguments against 'despotism' to protect the lives and property of subjects. The combined result of this interaction under the impact of the Thirty Years War was Seckendorff's Der Deutsche Fürstenstaat (1656), constraining the evil machinations of princes and organizing the detailed administration of life in the tradition of German Policey, and which founded a specifically German notion of the modern state as comprehensive provision of services to its subjects

The author claims that agrarian historiography in Germany suffers from a deficit of innovations resulting from the dominance of particular traditions. The history of agrarian growth and crises put forward by Wilhelm Abel was taken up in English-language research rather than in Germany. The mainstream of German agrarian historiography focused on the peasantry and on the political relations between peasants and lordship and thus followed the approach of Günther Franz. Although results like the active role of peasants in power conflicts during the early modern period refuted Franz' dictum of the passiveness after the Peasants' War (Bauernkriege), social differentiation of rural class society remained underexposed in German historiography. ; The author claims that agrarian historiography in Germany suffers from a deficit of innovations resulting from the dominance of particular traditions. The history of agrarian growth and crises put forward by Wilhelm Abel was taken up in English-language research rather than in Germany. The mainstream of German agrarian historiography focused on the peasantry and on the political relations between peasants and lordship and thus followed the approach of Günther Franz. Although results like the active role of peasants in power conflicts during the early modern period refuted Franz' dictum of the passiveness after the Peasants' War (Bauernkriege), social differentiation of rural class society remained underexposed in German historiography.

A review essay on a book by Timothy C. W. Blanning, The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture: Old Regime Europe 1660-1789 (Oxford, UK: Oxford U Press, 2002).

A review essay on a book by Janet Coleman, A History of Political Thought, Vol. 1: From Early Ancient Greece to Early Christianity; Vol. 2: From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000).