The Political Landscape
| Discussion topics | Documents | Audio | Reading |
Discussion topics and Essay Questions
- Which states were the significant 'powers' in Europe 1500-1750? What were the interests and objectives of their rulers?
- What were the driving forces and main instruments of European state formation?
- To what extent did the powers of the state increase between 1500 and 1750?
- How did Republican regimes differ from other forms of government?
Documents
**NOTE: Some eresources are accessible only on-campus or via off-campus proxies or the athens service**
Audio links
- BBC Radio 4 'In Our Time' podcast: 'The Siege of Vienna'
- BBC Radio 4 'In Our Time' podcast: 'Machiavelli and the Italian City States'
Secondary literature
Selected key texts
- M.S. Anderson, The Origins of the Modern European State System 1494-1618 (1998), scan of ch. 2 'The Instruments of International Relations: Trade and Finance'
- J. Black, The Rise of the European Powers 1679-1793 (1990), scan of ch. 4 'Practice and Theory in Ancien Regime International Relations'.
- J. Black, Kings, nobles and commoners: States and Societies in Early Modern Europe (2004) (ebook)
- R. Bonney, The European Dynastic States 1494-1660 (1991), scans of ch. 4 'The Struggle for European Hegemony, 1618-1660' and 'Conclusion: The European Dynastic States'
- " (ed.), The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe (1999)
- P. Cardim, T. Herzog, J. J. Ruiz Ibáñez, G. Sabatini (eds), Polycentric Monarchies: How Did Early Modern Spain & Portugal Achieve & Maintain a Global Hegemony? (2014) (ebook)
- J.H. Elliott, ‘A Europe of composite monarchies’, P&P 137 (1992)
- S. Hindle and B. Kümin, 'Centre and Periphery' in B. Kümin (ed.), The European World (2014; 2nd ed.)
- A. Kappeler, The Russian Empire: a Multiethnic History (2001)
- P. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500-2000 (1989), chs. 2 and 3.
- J. Kirshner et al., 'The Origins of the State in Italy, 1300-1600' Journal of Modern History, 67 (1995)
- G. Richardson, Renaissance Monarchy: the Reigns of Henry VIII, Francis I and Charles V (2002)
- J. Wolf, The Emergence of the Great Powers, 1685-1715 (1951)
- “ , Toward a European Balance of Power, 1620-1715 (1971)
Further Reading
* see also the secondary literature for 'Absolutism and its Alternatives'
a) Empires
The Habsburg/Holy Roman Empire
-
W. Blockmans, Emperor Charles V: 1500-1558 (2002)
-
F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, vol. 2 (1972)
-
C. S. Dixon, ‘Charles V and the Historians: Some Recent German Works on the Emperor and His Reign', German History 21 (2003), 104-124
-
J. Edwards, Ferdinand and Isabella (2004)
-
P. Sutter Fichtner, The Habsburg Monarchy 1490-1848: Attributes of Empire (2003)
-
A.C. Hess, 'The battle of Lepanto in Mediterranean history', Past and Present 57 (1972), 53-73
-
H. Kamen, Philip of Spain (1997)
-
“ , Spain 1469-1714: Society of Conflict (1991 edn)
-
“ , Spain’s Road to Empire: The Making of a World Power 1492-1763 (2002)
-
H.G. Koenigsberger, ‘The Empire of Charles V’, in G. R. Elton (ed.), The New Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 2 The Reformation, 1520-1559 (revised edn, 1990) (ebook)
-
“ , ‘The Statecraft of Philip II’, European History Quarterly, 1 (1971)
-
“ , ‘Western Europe and the power of Spain’, in R. B. Wenham, The New Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 3 Counter-Reformation and Price Revolution, 1559-1610 (1968) (ebook)
-
“ , 'The Politics of Philip II’, in Thorp & Slavin (eds), Politics, Religion and Diplomacy in Early Modern Europe (1994)
-
M. Levin, 'A New World Order: The Spanish Campaign for Precedence in Early Modern Europe' in Journal of Early Modern History 6, no. 3 (2002)
-
J. Lynch, Spain 1516-1598: From Nation State to World Empire (1991) (earlier edns: Spain under the Habsburgs)
-
W. Maltby, The Reign of Charles V (2002)
-
G. Parker, ‘Philip II & His World in the 1580’s’, in R. Kagan and G. Parker (eds), Spain, Europe and the Atlantic World (1995)
-
“ , The Grand Strategy of Philip II (1998)
-
H. Rawlings, The Debate on the Decline of Spain (2012)
-
H. Soly (ed.), Charles V 1500-1558 and his Time (1999), esp. chaps. on religion and international relations
-
J. Tracy, Emperor Charles V, Impresario of War: Campaign Strategy, International Finance, and Domestic Politics (2002)
The Ottoman Empire
-
A. Cirakman, From the "Terror of the World" to the "Sick Man of Europe": European Images of Ottoman Empire and Society from the Sixteenth Century to the Nineteenth Century (2002)
-
S. N. Faroqhi (ed.), Cambridge History of Turkey: Vol. 2 The Ottoman Empire as a World Power, 1453-1603 (2012) (ebook) and Cambridge History of Turkey: Vol. 3 The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839 (2006) (ebook)
-
S. Fischer-Galati, Ottoman Imperialism and German Protestantism, 1521-55 (1959)
-
D. Goffman, The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe (2000) (ebook)
-
A.C. Hess, ‘The Ottoman conquest of Egypt (1517) and the sixteenth-century world war’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 4 (1973)
-
C. Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1600. The Structure of Power (2002)
-
H. Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300-1600 (1973)
-
M. Kunt & C. Woodhead, Süleyman the Magnificent and His Age (1995)
-
R. Murphey, ‘Süleyman I and the conquest of Hungary’, Journal of Early Modern History 5 (2001)
-
A. Stiles, The Ottoman Empire 1450-1700 (1989)
-
C. Woodhead, ‘Consolidating the Empire: New Views on Ottoman History 1453-1839’, English Historical Review 123 (2008) (review article)
b) 'Nation states'
Early Modern Britain (Tudors and Stuarts)
- S. Barber, Regicide and Republicanism: Politics and Ethics in the English Revolution, 1646-1659 (1998)
-
S. Brigden, New Worlds, lost Worlds: the Rule of the Tudors 1485-1603 (2001)
-
P. Edwards, The Making of the Modern English State 1460-1660 (2001)
-
S.G. Ellis, ‘Crown, community and government in the English territories 1450-1575’, History 71, issue 232 (1986)
- ", 'The limits of power: the English crown and the British Isles' in P. Collinson (ed.), The Sixteenth Century, 1458-1603 (2002)
-
G.R. Elton, ‘'Tudor Government', Historical Journal 31 (1988)
- J. Guy, Tudor England (1988)
-
“ , (ed.), The Tudor Monarchy (1997), esp. chap. by Ellis
-
E.W. Ives, Faction in Tudor England (Hist. Assoc. 1979)
-
C. Levin, The Reign of Elizabeth I (2001)
-
D. Loades, Politics and the Nation, 1450-1660: Obedience, Resistant and Public Order (1974)
-
“ , Tudor Government: Structures of authority in the sixteenth century (1997)
- A. N. McLaren, Political Culture in the Reign of Elizabeth I: Queen and Commonwealth, 1558-1585 (1999) (ebook)
-
D.G. Newcombe, Henry VIII and the English Reformation (1995)
-
C. Russell, The Crisis of Parliaments: English History 1509-1660 (1971)
-
A.G.R. Smith, Tudor Government (Hist. Assoc. 1990)
- M. Todd, Reformation to revolution: politics and religion in early modern England (1995)
-
P. Williams, The Tudor Regime (1979), chap. 12
-
“ , The Later Tudors: England 1547-1603 (1995), chs 5-6
Early Modern France (Bourbons and Valois)
- D. Bohanan, Crown and nobility in early modern France (2001)
-
R. Briggs, Early Modern France 1560-1715 (1977)
- S. Carroll, Noble power during the French wars of religion (1998)
-
M. Greengrass, France in the Age of Henri IV: The Struggle for Stability (1995)
-
Mack P. Holt (ed.), Renaissance and Reformation France, 1500-1648 (2002)
-
“ , ‘King in Parlement: The problem of the lit de justice in sixteenth-century France’, Historical Journal 31 (1988)
-
R.J. Knecht, French Renaissance Monarchy: Francis I and Henry II (1984 & 1996)
-
“ , Renaissance Warrior and Patron: The Reign of Francis I (1994)
-
“ , The Rise and Fall of Renaissance France 1483-1610 (1996 & 2001)
-
E. Le Roy Ladurie, The Royal French State, 1460-1610 (trans. 1994)
-
J.R. Major, From Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy: French Kings, Nobles and Estates (1994) (ebook)
-
D. Potter, A History of France, 1460-1560: the Emergence of a Nation State (1995)
- Roelker, One king, one faith: the Parlement of Paris and the religious reformations of the sixteenth century (1996)
-
P. Roberts, ‘Royal Authority and Justice during the French Religious Wars’, Past and Present 184 (2004)
-
J.H. Shennan, Government and Society in France 1461-1661 (1969)
c) Republics
General reading (Republicanism and the Italian City States)
- S. Barber, Regicide and Republicanism: Politics and Ethics in the English Revolution, 1646-1659 (1998) (ebook)
-
A. Gamberini and I. Lazzarini (eds), The Italian Renaissance State (2012) (ebook)
- M. Goldie, 'The Unacknowledged Republic', in Tim Harris (ed.), The Politics of the Excluded, c.1500-1850 (2001) (ebook)
- Derek Hirst ‘The English republic and the meaning of Britain’, Journal of Modern History 66 (1994)
-
A. Holenstein, A., M. Prak and T. Maissen (eds), The Republican Alternative: The Netherlands and Switzerland Compared (2008) (ebook)
- J.G.A Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (1973)
- Nigel Smith, 'Popular republicanism in the 1650s: John Streater's ‘heroick mechanicks,’' in David Armitage, Armand Himy and Quintin Skinner (eds.) Milton and Republicanism (1995) (ebook)
- Blair Worden, 'Republicanism, Regicide and Republic: The English Experience', in Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner (eds), Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 2002).
The Dutch Republic
- J. Blom & E. Lamberts (eds), History of the Low Countries (1999)
- C.R. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire (1965)
- G. Darby (ed.), The Origins and Development of the Dutch Revolt (2001)
- O. Gelderblom (ed.), The Political Economy of the Dutch Republic (2009)
- K.H.D. Haley, The Dutch in the Seventeenth Century (1972)
- J. Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585-1740 (1989) (ebook)
- “ , The Dutch Republic: its rise, greatness and fall 1477-1806 (1995) (ebook)
- “ , 'A Golden Age: Innovation in Dutch cities 1648-1720’, History Today 45, no. 3 (March 1995)
- H. Kamen, 'The Economic and Social Consequences of the Thirty Years War', Past and Present 39 (1968)
- G. Parker, Spain and the Netherlands, 1559-1659 (1979)
- M. Prak, The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century (2005) (ebook)
- J.L. Price, Culture and Society in the Dutch Republic (1974)
- “ , The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century (1998)
- H.H. Rowen, The Princes of Orange: the stadholders in the Dutch Republic (1988) (ebook)
- S. Schama, ‘The unruly realm: appetite and restraint in C17th Holland’, Daedalus 108 (1979)
- C. Wilson, The Dutch Republic and the Civilisation of the seventeenth century (1968)
d) Urban and rural politics
- J. De Vries, ‘Renaissance cities’, Renaissance Quarterly 42 (1989)
- J. Ellis, ‘A steady state? Urban society in early modern Europe’, Journal of Urban History 24 (1998)
- R. Finlay, Urban Politics in Early Modern Europe (2000) (ebook)
- C.R. Friedrichs, The Early Modern City, 1450-1750 (1995).
- W. Hagen, Ordinary Prussians: Brandenburg Junkers and Villagers, 1500-1840 (2002)
- Tim Harris, The Politics of the Excluded, c. 1500-1850 (2001), esp. ch. 2.
- R. Mackenney, The City-State, 1500-1700: Republican Liberty in an Age of Princely Power (1989)
Module Forum
Module Homepage
E-Resources
Chronology
External Links
- The Revolt of the Netherlands - documents relating to the Reformation and the Revolt of the Low Countries, 1555-1609
- Philip II, Letters - Collection of letters of Philip II of Spain (in Spanish)
- Early Modern Austrian Absolutism - collection of documents relating to the Austrian Habsburgs
- Portugal in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries - account from Stanley Payne's A History of Spain and Portugal
- History of France - collection of primary sources relating to France, 1454-1788
- European State Finance Database - project collating European fiscal data across history
- British Civil Wars, Commonwealth & Protectorate - website dedicated to the history of Britain, c.1638-1657
- History of Trade - discussion of different types of European trading nations