Germany and the Holy Roman Empire: Volume I: Maximilian I to the Peace of Westphalia, 1493-1648 (Oxford History of Early Modern Europe) - Tapa dura

scholars ... will concur in their debt to Whaley's magnum opus ... [it] stands apart as the most authoritative account of the early modern empire (C. Ingrao, CHOICE)

...a monumental history of the Holy Roman Empire.which far surpasses everything that has been written about the subject to date. German history between the Reformation and Napoleon has never been written in such a lively, multi-facetted, source-based, and coherent manner. a history that embraces the whole of [German] culture, religion, economy and society. (Süddeutsche Zeitung)

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)

Overall brilliantly successful ... a detailed account of two hundred years of German history ... In a thousand details the monograph is more knowledgeable that other English-language accounts of German history ... and in numerous respects it is more knowledgeable than many a German handbook ... Whaley demonstrates a stupendous knowledge of German history. The reviewer believes this book is the most important English-language work on pre-modern German history for at least two decades. (Axel Gotthard, Sehepunkte)

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)

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)

essential reading (Edward Bradbury, Contemporary Review)

Germany and the Holy Roman Empire offers a new interpretation of the development of German-speaking central Europe and the Holy Roman Empire or German Reich, from the great reforms of 1495-1500 to its dissolution in 1806 after the turmoil of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Going against the notion that this was a long period of decline, Joachim Whaley shows how imperial institutions developed in response to the crises of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, notably the Reformation and Thirty Years War, and assesses the impact of international developments on the Reich. Central themes are the tension between Habsburg aspirations to create a German monarchy and the desire of the German princes and cities to maintain their traditional rights, and how the Reich developed the functions of a state during this period.

The first single-author account of German history from the Reformation to the early nineteenth century since Hajo Holborn's study written in the 1950s, it also illuminates the development of the German territories subordinate to the Reich. Whaley explores the implications of the Reformation and subsequent religious reform movements, both Protestant and Catholic, and the Enlightenment for the government of both secular and ecclesiastical principalities, the minor territories of counts and knights and the cities. The Reich and the territories formed a coherent and workable system and, as a polity, the Reich developed its own distinctive political culture and traditions of German patriotism over the early modern period.

Whaley explains the development of the Holy Roman Empire as an early modern polity and illuminates the evolution of the several hundred German territories within it. He gives a rich account of topics such as the Reformation, the Thirty Years War, Pietism and baroque Catholicism, the Aufklärung or German Enlightenment and the impact on the Empire and its territories of the French Revolution and Napoleon. It includes consideration of language, cultural aspects and religious and intellectual movements. Germany and the Holy Roman Empire engages with all the major debates among both German and English-speaking historians about early modern German history over the last sixty years and offers a striking new interpretation of this important period.

Volume I extends from the late fifteenth century through to the Thirty Years War.