Monarchism and Absolutism in Early Modern Europe

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Editors: Cesare Cuttica and Glenn Burgess

Political and Popular Culture in the Early Modern Period

The fourteen essays in this volume look at both the theory and practice of monarchical governments from the Thirty Years War up until the time of the French Revolution. Contributors aim to unravel the constructs of ‘absolutism’ and ‘monarchism’, examining how the power and authority of monarchs was defined through contemporary politics and philosophy. Questions are asked as to whether it is possible to speak of a general political monarchist doctrine in early modern Europe, about the role of despotism, and the formation of national identities.

Sample pages

• Introduction
• Index

Readership

Early Modern History

Contents

Introduction: Monarchism and Absolutism in Early Modern Europe – Cesare Cuttica and Glenn Burgess

Part I: Royalists, Republicans, Patriarchalists: English Thinkers At Odds In The Seventeenth Century
1 A Culture of Political Counsel: The Case of Fourteenth-Century England's 'Virtuous' Monarchy vs Royal Absolutism and Seventeenth-Century Reinterpretations – Janet Coleman
2 Royalist Absolutism in the 1650s: The Case of Robert Sheringham – Edward Vallance
3 Patriarchalism and the Monarchical Republicans – Gaby Mahlberg

Part II: Absolutism, Cynicism, Patriotism: Eighteenth-Century Enlightenment Reflections
4 Cynic Kingship in the German Enlightenment – John Christian Laursen
5 Polizey and Patriotism: Joseph Von Sonnenfels and the Legitimacy of Enlightened Monarchy in the Gaze of Eighteenth-Century State Sciences – László Kontler
6 Absolutism, Patriotism and Publicity in Denmark-Norway in the Eighteenth Century: Jens Schielderup Sneedorff, Andreas Schytte and Frederik Sneedorff – Henrik Horstbøll
7 Jansenist Jurisdictionalism and Enlightenment: Two Ways of Thinking Politics in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Naples – Girolamo Imbruglia

Part III: Absolutism, Monarchism, Despotism In Theory And Practice: Contested Historiography and Comparative Approach
8 Early Modern Absolutism in Practice and Theory – Johann P Sommerville
9 An Absolutist Trio in the Early 1630s: Sir Robert Filmer, Jean-Louis Guez De Balzac, Cardin Le Bret and Their Models of Monarchical Power – Cesare Cuttica
10 Tyrants, Absolute Kings, Arbitrary Rulers and The Commonwealth Of England: Some Reflections On Seventeenth-Century English Political Vocabulary – Glenn Burgess

Part IV: Monarchy, The State Of Nature, Religion and Iconography in European Perspective
11 ‘Monstrous’ Pufendorf: Sovereignty and System in the Dissertations – Michael Seidler
12 Absolute Chaos, Absolute Order: The Rhetoric of the State of Nature in the Discourse of Sovereignty – Ioannis Evrigenis
13 Bayle on Brutus: A Paradoxical Issue? – Luisa Simonutti
14 'More Long-Lasting Than Bronze?' Statues, Public Commemoration and Representations of Monarchy in Diderot's Political Thought – Tim Hochstrasser

Reviews

'there is much of interest in these essays'
– Malcom Smuts, Reviews in History (read the full review here)

Related titles

• The Musical Iconography of Power in Seventeenth-Century Spain and Her Territories
• The Politics of Disclosure, 1674–1725: Secret History Narratives
• Taxation and Debt in the Early Modern City

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