Overview

In state formation research, princely houses have been a blind spot. The development of states has been discussed from many perspectives, like interstate competition, internal social conflicts, fiscal-military developments, etc., but at the centre of most European states, there was a princely house. These ruling houses have been overlooked in studies about state formation. What’s more, when discussing such dynasties, the vertical chronological perspective (grandfather-father-son) is all dominating, for instance in the focus on dynastic continuity, dynastic culture and representation, and the like. This collection of essays highlights the horizontal perspective (ruler, all children, siblings, cousins), in asking how the members of a princely family acted as a power network. The quest is to develop an understanding how this family network interplayed with other factors in the state formation process. This volume brings together existing knowledge of the topic with the aim of exchanging insights and furthering knowledge.

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9781041178392

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Liesbeth Geevers (Lund University) is Associate Professor of History. She earned her PhD at the University of Amsterdam (2008) with a thesis on the Dutch Revolt. Since then, she has published extensively on the Houses of Nassau and Habsburg, as well as on dynastic identity in the early modern period. Harald Gustafsson (Lund University) is Professor emeritus of History. After defending his thesis at Stockholm University in 1985, Gustafsson has been affiliated to Lund University (professor 1999-2020). His main focus of research is early modern Nordic and European history, including themes as state formation, political culture, and political influence of ordinary people.

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