Germany and the Holy Roman Empire: Volume II: The Peace of Westphalia to the Dissolution of the Reich, 1648-1806 (Oxford History of Early Modern Europe) - Hardcover

Whaley, Joachim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199693072 ISBN 13: 9780199693078

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2012

Synopsis

Germany and the Holy Roman Empire offers a new interpretation of the development of German-speaking central Europe and the Holy Roman Empire or German Reich, from the great reforms of 1495-1500 to its dissolution in 1806 after the turmoil of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Going against the notion that this was a long period of decline, Joachim Whaley shows how imperial institutions developed in response to the crises of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, notably the Reformation and Thirty Years War, and assesses the impact of international developments on the Reich. Central themes are the tension between Habsburg aspirations to create a German monarchy and the desire of the German princes and cities to maintain their traditional rights, and how the Reich developed the functions of a state during this period.

The first single-author account of German history from the Reformation to the early nineteenth century since Hajo Holborn's study written in the 1950s, it also illuminates the development of the German territories subordinate to the Reich. Whaley explores the implications of the Reformation and subsequent religious reform movements, both Protestant and Catholic, and the Enlightenment for the government of both secular and ecclesiastical principalities, the minor territories of counts and knights and the cities. The Reich and the territories formed a coherent and workable system and, as a polity, the Reich developed its own distinctive political culture and traditions of German patriotism over the early modern period.

Whaley explains the development of the Holy Roman Empire as an early modern polity and illuminates the evolution of the several hundred German territories within it. He gives a rich account of topics such as the Reformation, the Thirty Years War, Pietism and baroque Catholicism, the Aufklarung or German Enlightenment and the impact on the Empire and its territories of the French Revolution and Napoleon. It includes consideration of language, cultural aspects and religious and intellectual movements. Germany and the Holy Roman Empire engages with all the major debates among both German and English-speaking historians about early modern German history over the last sixty years and offers a striking new interpretation of this important period.

Volume II starts with the end of the Thirty Years War and extends to the dissolution of the Reich

About this title

About the Author

Joachim Whaley read History at Christ's College Cambridge. He held Fellowships in History at Christ's College and Robinson College before becoming a Lecturer in German in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge, where he teaches German history, thought, and language. He is the author of Religious Toleration and Social Change in Hamburg 1529-1819 and of numerous articles on early modern and modern German history. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 1984.

Review

"Joachim Whaley crowns a long generation's work of demystifying the empire's history with these two large, learned, and impressive volumes...[A] magnificent achievement."--Journal of Modern History

"Whaley's account is one of the best works on early modern German history. From the first page to the last, it shows how German history can be presented as both a history of Emperor and Empire, and a history of common culture. It will immediately establish itself as a standard guide to its subject."--Georg Schmidt, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena

"These two volumes offer an historical survey of roughly three centuries such as I have never before encountered. Joachim Whaley has produced a masterpiece. He has not overlooked anything at all. The two volumes are perfectly researched and the price of 130$e is more than reasonable. Anyone interested in modern history and in particular the history of Germany must read this work."--Fachbuch Kritik (review of the German edition)

"[A] pleasure to read...Whaley shows how the efforts to create an intellectual and political framework in the pre-constitutional era had lasting effects to the present."--Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger (review of the German edition)

"[A] great achievement that he has introduced the English-speaking public to German history before the twentieth century in such a comprehensive manner and that he shows so decisively how the old national narrative has been revised. The sheer volume of the material that he employs also commands respect."--Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (review of the German edition)

"The new standard work on the period in which people still spoke of 'German liberties.'"--Die Zeit (review of the German edition)

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0199693072
• ISBN 13: 9780199693078
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 784