A richly documented study of early modern state formation, sovereignty, legitimacy, and comparative political culture in Alsace between the Peace of Westphalia and the French Revolution

Following France's annexation after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Alsace evolved a political culture in between that of the putatively "absolute" France and the decentralized Holy Roman Empire. This dissertation analyzes the interaction of French and German political cultures and practices in Alsace from the Peace of Westphalia to the French Revolution through a case study of the Alsatian territories ruled by the dukes of Pfalz-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld, a rising dinasty that inherited the Duchy of Pfalz-Zweibrücken in 1773, and their administrations. It illustrates the contingent nature of political change and state building in early modern Europe, strips the state of the teleological trappings placed on it by later historians, and restores the early modern state to its proper historical context. The dissertation has two primary arguments. First, both newcomers, the French monarchy and the dukes of Pfalz-Zweibrücken shared power in a successful bid to develop and maintain political legitimacy. The relative authority of the two powers varied considerably depending on the specific territory ; the final division of power therefore did too. In France, French monarchy served as the political center. The individual rulers of the Holy Roman Empire ruled a plethora of different principalities, free cities, and ecclesiastical states. In Alsace, the French monarchy and the dukes of Pfalz-Zweibrücken formed two seperate political centers. Second, my dissertation takes advantage of recent historiography on the early modern state to argue for the critical role of seigneurial officials in building and embodying the state. As they executed their tasks in face-to-face encounters with subjects, they bound together the ducal government that appointed them, the French administration that approved them, and the local communities that accepted them into an indissoluble whole. In short, they were the crucial mediators of authority for both state centers. I call this process state building through the middle. This study therefore demonstrates the how and the why of early modern state building, the lilitations of focusing on the view from above, and the critical position of subjects and officials in the middle.

Analyzes how negotiations between Dutch consuls and North African rulers over the liberation of Dutch sailors helped create a new diplomatic order in the western Mediterranean.

The formation of states in early modern Europe has long been an important topic for historical analysis. Traditionally, the political and military struggles of kings and rulers were the favoured object of study for academic historians. This book highlights new historical research from Europe’s northern frontier, bringing ‘the people’ back into the discussion of state politics, presenting alternative views of political and social relations in the Nordic countries before industrialisation. The early modern period was a time that witnessed initiatives from people from many groups formally excluded from political influence, operating outside the structures of central government, and this book returns to the subject of contentious politics and state building from below.

Professor Mary Lindemann inspired several generations of historical researchers in early modern history and culture. She has served as president of the German Studies Association and the American Historical Association and is the author of pathbreaking scholarly work in the history of medicine, urban space, diplomacy, and of women. In honor of her scholarship, service, and dedication, Healing and Harm gathers a group of leading scholars that includes her students, contemporaries, and those who have been inspired by her work to continue Lindemann’s prolific arguments and observations on early modern, central European and German history and culture.

How gunpowder technology exploded heroes, heroics, and war stories from 1400 to 1700, and how German writers tried to glue them back together

Christian history in rural central Germany principally followed not a Catholic and Protestant course but rather an indigenous one, which agricultural and communal forces animated and which bifurcated in the wake of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia.