Description
Book SynopsisVon Friedeburg investigates the emergence of the territorial state in early modern Germany, examining Germany's transformation of Lutheran and Neo-Aristotelian notions of civil order under the impact of the Thirty Years War. The book analyses the intellectual debates which contributed to the making of a modern notion of 'state'.
Trade Review'This book offers an original and striking argument about the emergence of the German concept of the State from conflict and dialogue among princes and their subjects amidst the catastrophic circumstances of the Thirty Years War and its immediate aftermath. Friedeburg breaks new ground by shifting the discussion away from the unsteady development of German liberalism and the supposed uncritical and even enthusiastic embrace of monarchism, which allegedly pushed Germany along a deviant 'special path' away from western democracy and towards Nazism.' Peter H. Wilson, University of Hull
'This work is a tour de force on the development of the modern state in Germany, and a gift for all who are fascinated by the way ideas and passions can transform an empire. It is also a reminder of how voices from the past, and Luther's in particular, continue to speak to critical issues of injustice today.' Brenden Bott, Renaissance and Reformation
'This original interpretation makes the book a major intervention and provides a new way of thinking about the emergence of the state in the German lands.' Martin Christ, European History Quarterly
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Luther's legacy and the 'German' notion of state; 1. Meinecke's riddle: reason of state and Reformation prudence; 2. Royal rights and princely dynasties in late medieval and early modern Germany, fourteenth to early seventeenth centuries; 3. Civil order and princely rights, 1450s to 1580s: the making of the elements; 4. The transformation of ideas on order and the rise of the 'fatherland', 1580s to 1630s: the re-ordering of the elements; 5. The challenge of 'reason of state', 1600s to 1650s; 6. The catastrophe of war and the collapse of relations between princes and vassals; 7. The re-establishing of compromise and the new use of the elements: Seckendorff, Pufendorf and the dissemination of the new concept of 'state'; 8. Readings of despotism: the attack on 'war-despotism' between Bodin and Montesquieu; Conclusion: Luther's legacy: the 'Germaness' of the modern notion of 'state'; Bibliography; Index.
