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In this path-breaking study, first published in 2000, Jonathan Scott argues that seventeenth-century English history was shaped by three processes. The first was destructive: that experience of political instability which contemporaries called 'our troubles'. The second was creative: its spectacular intellectual consequence in the English revolution. The third was reconstructive: the long restoration voyage toward safe haven from these terrifying storms. Driving the troubles were fears and passions animated by European religious and political developments. The result registered the impact upon fragile institutions of powerful beliefs. One feature of this analysis is its relationship of the history of events to that of ideas. Another is its consideration of these processes across the century as a whole. The most important is its restoration of this extraordinary English experience to its European context.

Focusing on the concepts of popular consent, representation, limit, and resistance to tyranny as essential features of modern theories of parliamentary democracy, Monahan shows a continuity in use of these concepts across the alleged divide between the Mi

Fifty years after the beginning of the debate about the "general crisis of the seventeenth century," and thirty years after theodore K. Rabb's reformulation of it as the "European struggle for stability." this volume returns to the fundamental questions raised by the long-running discussion: What continent-wide patterns of change can be discerned in European history across the centuries from the Renaissance to the French Revolution? What were the causes of the revolts that rocked so many countries between 1640 and 1660? Did fundamental changes occur in the relationship between politics and religion? Politics and military technology? Politics and the structures of intellectual authority?

Any assessment of Philip II's rule assumes the appearance of a paradox. In analysing the nature and impact of Philip II's rule and government, the author seeks to examine the extent of the changes in royal finance, the economic and social issues, the impact of religion -- both within Spain and throughout its Empire -- and the aims and motives behind the king's foreign policy.

State, Economy and the Great Divergence provides a new analysis of what has become the central debate in global economic history: the 'great divergence' between European and Asian growth. Focusing on early modern China and Western Europe, in particular Great Britain, this book offers a new level of detail on comparative state formation that has wide-reaching implications for European, Eurasian and global history. Beginning with an overview of the historiography, Peer Vries goes on to extend and develop the debate, critically engaging with the huge volume of literature published on the topic to date. Incorporating recent insights, he offers a compelling alternative to the claims to East-West equivalence, or Asian superiority, which have come to dominate discourse surrounding this issue. This is a vital update to a key issue in global economic history and, as such, is essential reading for students and scholars interested in keeping up to speed with the on-going debates.