The Birth of a Great Power System, 1740-1815

The Birth of a Great Power System, 1740-1815 PDF Author: Hamish Scott
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317893530
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 433

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Book Description
The Birth of a Great Power System, 1740-1815 examines a key development in modern European history: the origins and emergence of a competitive state system. H.M. Scott demonstrates how the well-known and dramatic events of these decades - the emergence of Russia and Prussia; the three partitions of Poland; the continuing retreat of the Ottoman Empire; the unprecedented territorial expansion of Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, halted by the final defeat of Napoleon - were part of a wider process that created the modern great power system, dominated by Europe's five leading states. Enhanced by maps and a chronology of principal events, this comprehensive and accessible textbook is fully up-to-date in its coverage of recent scholarship. Unlike many other treatments of this period, Scott extends his beyond the French Revolution of 1789 in order to demonstrate how events both before and after this great upheaval merged to produce the central political development in modern European history. This book addresses the crucial phase in the emergence of the modern international system which, with the subsequent addition of the USA, Japan and Russia, has prevailed until the present day.

The Birth of a Great Power System, 1740-1815

The Birth of a Great Power System, 1740-1815 PDF Author: Hamish Scott
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317893530
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 433

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Birth of a Great Power System, 1740-1815 examines a key development in modern European history: the origins and emergence of a competitive state system. H.M. Scott demonstrates how the well-known and dramatic events of these decades - the emergence of Russia and Prussia; the three partitions of Poland; the continuing retreat of the Ottoman Empire; the unprecedented territorial expansion of Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, halted by the final defeat of Napoleon - were part of a wider process that created the modern great power system, dominated by Europe's five leading states. Enhanced by maps and a chronology of principal events, this comprehensive and accessible textbook is fully up-to-date in its coverage of recent scholarship. Unlike many other treatments of this period, Scott extends his beyond the French Revolution of 1789 in order to demonstrate how events both before and after this great upheaval merged to produce the central political development in modern European history. This book addresses the crucial phase in the emergence of the modern international system which, with the subsequent addition of the USA, Japan and Russia, has prevailed until the present day.

Frederick the Great

Frederick the Great PDF Author: Tim Blanning
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0812988736
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 705

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Book Description
The definitive biography of the legendary autocrat whose enlightened rule transformed the map of Europe and changed the course of history Few figures loom as large in European history as Frederick the Great. When he inherited the Prussian crown in 1740, he ruled over a kingdom of scattered territories, a minor Germanic backwater. By the end of his reign, the much larger and consolidated Prussia ranked among the continent’s great powers. In this magisterial biography, award-winning historian Tim Blanning gives us an intimate, in-depth portrait of a king who dominated the political, military, and cultural life of Europe half a century before Napoleon. A brilliant, ambitious, sometimes ruthless monarch, Frederick was a man of immense contradictions. This consummate conqueror was also an ardent patron of the arts who attracted painters, architects, musicians, playwrights, and intellectuals to his court. Like his fellow autocrat Catherine the Great of Russia, Frederick was captivated by the ideals of the Enlightenment—for many years he kept up lively correspondence with Voltaire and other leading thinkers of the age. Yet, like Catherine, Frederick drew the line when it came to implementing Enlightenment principles that might curtail his royal authority. Frederick’s terrifying father instilled in him a stern military discipline that would make the future king one of the most fearsome battlefield commanders of his day, while deriding as effeminate his son’s passion for modern ideas and fine art. Frederick, driven to surpass his father’s legacy, challenged the dominant German-speaking powers, including Saxony, Bavaria, and the Habsburg Monarchy. It was an audacious foreign policy gambit, one at which Frederick, against the expectations of his rivals, succeeded. In examining Frederick’s private life, Blanning also carefully considers the long-debated question of Frederick’s sexuality, finding evidence that Frederick lavished gifts on his male friends and maintained homosexual relationships throughout his life, while limiting contact with his estranged, unloved queen to visits that were few and far between. The story of one man’s life and the complete political and cultural transformation of a nation, Tim Blanning’s sweeping biography takes readers inside the mind of the monarch, giving us a fresh understanding of Frederick the Great’s remarkable reign. Praise for Frederick the Great “Writing Frederick’s biography . . . requires a diverse set of skills: expertise in eighteenth-century diplomatic and military history, including the intricacies of the Holy Roman Empire; a familiarity with the music, architecture and intellectual traditions of Northern Europe; and, not least, a profound sense of human psychology, the better to grasp the makeup of this complex and tormented man. Fortunately, Tim Blanning . . . has all of these skills in abundance.”—The Wall Street Journal “At once scholarly and highly readable . . . [Blanning] has given us a superb portrait of an enlightened despot, equally at home on the battlefield and in the opera house, both utterly ruthless and culturally refined.”—Commentary “Blanning, in clear thinking and prose, investigates all aspects of Frederick’s personality and reign. . . . The last word on this significant king, for years to come.”—Booklist (starred review) “Masterly . . . Blanning brilliantly brings to life one of the most complex characters of modern European history.”—The Telegraph (five stars) “A supremely nuanced account . . . This biography finds [Blanning] at the height of his powers.”—Literary Review

The Oxford Handbook of the Ancien Régime

The Oxford Handbook of the Ancien Régime PDF Author: William Doyle
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199291209
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 598

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Book Description
An exploration of current scholarly thinking about the wide and surprisingly complex range of historical problems associated with the study of Ancien Régime Europe

The Sinews of Habsburg Power

The Sinews of Habsburg Power PDF Author: William D. Godsey
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198809395
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
The Sinews of Habsburg Power explores the domestic foundations of the immense growth of central European Habsburg power from the rise of a permanent standing army after the Thirty Years' War to the end of the Napoleonic wars. With a force that grew irregularly in size from around 25,000 soldiers to as many as half a million in the War of the Sixth Coalition, the Habsburg monarchy participated in shifting international constellations of rivalry from western Europe to the Near East and in some two dozen, partly overlapping armed conflicts. Raising forces of such magnitude constituted a central task of Habsburg government, one that ultimately required the cooperation of society and its elites. The monarchy's composite-territorial structures in the guise of the Lower Austrian Estates -- a leading representative body and privileged corps -- formed a vital, if changing, element underlying Habsburg international success and resilience. With its capital at Vienna, the archduchy below the river Enns (the historic designation of Lower Austria) was geographically, politically, and financially a key Habsburg possession. Fiscal-military exigency induced the Estates to take part in new and evolving arrangements of power that served the purposes of government; in turn the Estates were able in previously little-understood ways and within narrowing boundaries to preserve vital interests in a changing world. The Estates survived because they were necessary, not only thanks to their increasing financial potency, but also because they offered a politically viable way of exacting ever-larger quantities of money, men, and other resources from local society. These circumstances would persist as ruling became more regularized, formalized, and homogenized, and as the very understanding of the Estates as a social and political phenomenon was evolving.

Summits

Summits PDF Author: David Reynolds
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458752291
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
Recounts six summits which had a significant political impact during the twentieth century, including the Yalta summit in 1945 with Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, and the Geneva summit in 1985 with Gorbachev and Reagan.

Secretaries and Statecraft in the Early Modern World

Secretaries and Statecraft in the Early Modern World PDF Author: Dover Paul M. Dover
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474415881
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 575

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Book Description
One of the prominent themes of the political history of the 16th and 17th centuries is the waxing influence officials in the exercise of state power, particularly in international relations, as it became impossible for monarchs to stay on top of the increasingly complex demands of ruling. Encompassing a variety of cultural and institutional settings, these essays examine how state secretaries, prime ministers and favourites managed diplomatic personnel and the information flows they generated. They explore how these officials balanced domestic matters with external concerns, and service to the monarch and state with personal ambition. By opening various perspectives on policy-making at the level just below the monarch, this volume offers up rich opportunities for comparative history and a new take on the diplomatic history of the period.

The European World 1500–1800

The European World 1500–1800 PDF Author: Beat Kümin
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000789381
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 574

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Book Description
The European World 1500–1800 provides a concise and authoritative textbook for the centuries between the Renaissance and the French Revolution. It presents early modern Europe not as a mere transition phase, but a dynamic period worth studying in its own right. Written by an experienced team of specialists, and derived from a successful undergraduate course, it offers a student-friendly introduction to all major themes and processes of early modern history. This fully updated fourth edition is structured in six parts – Starting Points, Society and Economy, Religion, The Wider World, Culture, Politics – and includes two new chapters on the Environment and Food and Drink Cultures. Specially designed to assist learning, The European World 1500–1800 features: expert surveys of key topics written by an international group of historians suggestions for seminar discussion and further reading extracts from primary sources and generous illustrations, including maps a glossary of key terms and concepts a full index of persons, places and subjects and a companion website, offering colour images, direct access to primary materials, and interactive features which highlight key events and locations discussed in the volume. The European World 1500–1800 is essential reading for all students embarking on the discovery of the early modern period. For support with the early modern historiographical debates see the partnering volume Interpreting Early Modern Europe edited by C. Scott Dixon and Beat Kümin.- https://www.routledge.com/Interpreting-Early-Modern-Europe/Dixon-Kumin/p/book/9781138799011.

The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History, 1350-1750

The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History, 1350-1750 PDF Author: Hamish Scott
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019102001X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 861

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Book Description
This Handbook re-examines the concept of early modern history in a European and global context. The term 'early modern' has been familiar, especially in Anglophone scholarship, for four decades and is securely established in teaching, research, and scholarly publishing. More recently, however, the unity implied in the notion has fragmented, while the usefulness and even the validity of the term, and the historical periodisation which it incorporates, have been questioned. The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History, 1350-1750 provides an account of the development of the subject during the past half-century, but primarily offers an integrated and comprehensive survey of present knowledge, together with some suggestions as to how the field is developing. It aims both to interrogate the notion of 'early modernity' itself and to survey early modern Europe as an established field of study. The overriding aim will be to establish that 'early modern' is not simply a chronological label but possesses a substantive integrity. Volume II is devoted to 'Cultures and Power', opening with chapters on philosophy, science, art and architecture, music, and the Enlightenment. Subsequent sections examine 'Europe beyond Europe', with the transformation of contact with other continents during the first global age, and military and political developments, notably the expansion of state power.

Fiscal-Military State: Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide

Fiscal-Military State: Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide PDF Author: Oxford University Press
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019980835X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 26

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Book Description
This ebook is a selective guide designed to help scholars and students of the ancient world find reliable sources of information by directing them to the best available scholarly materials in whatever form or format they appear from books, chapters, and journal articles to online archives, electronic data sets, and blogs. Written by a leading international authority on the subject, the ebook provides bibliographic information supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult and editorial commentary to make it clear how the cited sources are interrelated. This ebook is just one of many articles from Oxford Bibliographies Online: Atlantic History, a continuously updated and growing online resource designed to provide authoritative guidance through the scholarship and other materials relevant to the study of Atlantic History, the study of the transnational interconnections between Europe, North America, South America, and Africa, particularly in the early modern and colonial period. Oxford Bibliographies Online covers most subject disciplines within the social science and humanities, for more information visit www.oxfordbibliographies.com.

Cultures of Power in Europe During the Long Eighteenth Century

Cultures of Power in Europe During the Long Eighteenth Century PDF Author: Hamish M. Scott
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521842273
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
An analysis of the forces which shaped politics and culture in Germany, France and Great Britain in the eighteenth century.