State Formation and Shared Sovereignty: The Holy Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic, 1488–1696

Close, Christopher W.

ISBN 10: 110883762X / ISBN 13: 9781108837620

Published by Cambridge University Press, 2021

About this Item

Seller Inventory # I-9781108837620

Bibliographic Details

• Title: State Formation and Shared Sovereignty: The Holy Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic, 1488?1696
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication Date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 110883762X
• ISBN 13: 9781108837620
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, dozens of alliances asserting shared sovereignty formed in the Holy Roman Empire and the Low Countries. Many accounts of state formation struggle to explain these leagues, since they characterize state formation as a process of internal bureaucratization within individual states. This comparative study of alliances in the Holy Roman Empire and the Low Countries focuses on a formative time in European history, from the late fifteenth century until the immediate aftermath of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia, to demonstrate how the sharing of sovereignty through alliances influenced the evolution of the Empire, the Dutch Republic, and their various member states in fundamental ways. Alliances simultaneously supported and constrained central and territorial authorities, while their collaborative policy-making process empowered smaller states, helping to ensure their survival. By revealing how the interdependencies of alliance shaped states of all sizes in the Empire and the Low Countries, Christopher W. Close opens new perspectives on state formation with profound implications for understanding the development of states across Europe.

About the Author

Christopher W. Close is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Saint Joseph's University. He has received several prestigious research grants from organizations including the German Academic Exchange Service and the American Philosophical Society. He is the author of The Negotiated Reformation: Imperial Cities and the Politics of Urban Reform, 1525-1550 (2009) and numerous articles in The Sixteenth Century Journal and European History Quarterly.