Germany in the Age of Absolutism

By Rudolf Vierhaus

Book Overview

Rudolf Vierhaus's work is much more than a political history of Germany from the Thirty Years' War to the end of the Seven Years' War. His study reconstructs the historical elements that marked this age. He examines economic developments, the social system, and cultural life, even as he continues to pay close attention to Germany's political organizations, its wars, and political conflicts. German history is set both within the diverse pattern of its regional life and the larger European context, in order to restore a full analytical complexity to the age of absolutism.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521339367
• ISBN13: 9780521339360
• Release Date: February 1989
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 188 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Surveys Difficult Terrain Very Well

Vierhaus, a well-known German historian, entered a minefield for historians with this intelligent introductory book. He has to account for "Germany" when none really existed, he uses the term "absolutism" when it also may have not existed, and he sought to find commonalities among the various Germanies while also telling the story of Prussia's rise to prominence. He pulls it off. In chapters surveying such topics as the economy, society, cultural life and the world of ideas, Vierhaus presents a thematic history of about 150 years in central Europe. Pietism and cameralism, two German distinctives, receive treatment. So do the estate system and the various socioeconomic classes of the early modern period. The author manages to outline the estates and classes while at the same time allowing for changes to this very corporatism, seen in his discussion, for example, of the rising nonnoble government officials, who did not fit the traditional order. On the issue of absolutism, Vierhaus argues for a strong central authority and an influential process of social disciplining, but he tempers it slightly by suggesting that agreement between estates and power groups, instead of open conflict, was the norm. It is recommended as a textbook for upper-division students and is in paperback, albeit at a high price.