Print Price: $69.50

Format:
Paperback
772 pp.
2 b/w maps, 156 mm x 234 mm

ISBN-13:
9780199688838

Publication date:
October 2013

Imprint: OUP UK

Germany and the Holy Roman Empire

Volume II: The Peace of Westphalia to the Dissolution of the Reich, 1648-1806

Joachim Whaley

Series : Oxford History of Early Modern Europe

Germany and the Holy Roman Empire offers a striking new interpretation of a crucial era in German and European history, from the great reforms of 1495-1500 to the dissolution of the Reich in 1806. Over two volumes, Joachim Whaley rejects the notion that this was a long period of decline, and shows instead how imperial institutions developed in response to the crises of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, notably the Reformation and Thirty Years War. The impact of international developments on the Reich is also examined.

Volume II begins with the Peace of Westphalia and concludes with the dissolution of the Reich. Whaley analyses the remarkable resurgence of the Reich after the Thirty Years War, which saw the Habsburg emperors achieve a new position of power and influence and which enabled the Reich to withstand the military threats posed by France and the Turks in the later seventeenth century. He gives a rich account of topics such as Pietism and baroque Catholicism, the German enlightenment, and the impact on the Empire and its territories of the French Revolution and Napolean. Whaley emphasizes the continuing viability of the Reich's institutions to the end, and the vitality of a political culture of freedom that has been routinely underestimated by historians of modern Germany.

Readership : Suitable for historians, German specialists, undergraduate and graduate students, and the interested reader.

Reviews

• Review from previous edition: "Whaley sees the Reich as a continually reforming, diverse but legally ordered polity, rather than some kind of bizarre monstrosity or collective fiction. His two volumes are exceptionally well written and highly nuanced and reflect the latest scholarship. Indeed, they represent a huge personal achievementthey will provide a standard of scholarship against which all future works will be measured"
  
  --Alan Sked, Reviews in History
  
  
• "its complexity and sophistication [...the] stupendous breadth and depth of Whaley's knowledge. The two volumes are full of incisive chapters on topics as diverse as economic policies, religious reform movements, court culture ... skilfully crafted and engrossing narrative"
  
  --Michael Schaich, Times Literary Supplement
  
  
• "superb and authoritative study"
  
  --Peter Oborne, Daily Telegraph
  
  
• "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
  
  
• "[Whaley's] skilfully crafted and engrossing narrative shows with great lucidity how enduring and successful were the constitutional structures put in place around 1500"
  
  --Times Literary Supplement
  
  
• "the most comprehensive survey of Germany's early modern history ever undertaken, the first book of its kind since the 1950s, and one of the most substantial works of historical scholarship published in the UK in 2011"
  
  --Research Horizons, University of Cambridge
  
  
• "An enterprise of this magnitude requires a steady hand on the tiller, as the author steers between the rocks of historiographical controversy and the shoals of submerged detail Whaley accomplishes his argosy with poise and style. These two volumes, which will undoubtedly become a first point of reference, are a remarkable achievement of which the author should feel justly proud"
  
  --Tom Scott, English Historical Review
  
  
• "His work, though different in emphasis and organisation, stands equal with the major German speaking syntheses today existing such as by Horst Rabe, Karl Otmar von Aretin, Heinz Schilling, or Georg Schmidt. His detailed knowledge of the vast relevant research literature, in German or in any other language, on topics ranging from the later fifteenth to the early nineteenth century is breath-taking. As such, this work is a must-read for all students of Early Modern Germany unless they work on specific issues of social and demographic history. The superior quality of Whaley's synthesis is beyond question. This is a masterpiece that demands close attention and respect."
  
  --Robert von Friedeburg, H-Soz-u-Kult online 2013
  
  
• "essential reading"
  
  --Edward Bradbury, Contemporary Review