Lineages of the Absolutist State"The political nature of Absolutism has long been a subject of controversy within historical materialism. Developing considerations advanced in Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism, this book situates the Absolutist states of the early modern epoch against the prior background of European feudalism. It is divided into two parts. The first discusses the overall structures of Absolutism as a state-system in Western Europe, from the Renaissance onwards; and the difficult question of the relations between monarchy and nobility institutionalised by it, for which it suggests a general periodization. It then looks in turn at the trajectory of each of the specific Absolutist states in the dominant countries of the West - Spain, France, England and Sweden, set off against the case of Italy, where no major indigenous Absolutism developed. The second part of the work sketches a comparative prospect of Absolutism in Eastern Europe. |
Contents
The Absolutist State in the West | 15 |
Problems of Periodization | 43 |
Spain | 60 |
France | 85 |
England | 113 |
Italy | 143 |
Sweden | 173 |
The Absolutist State in the East | 195 |
Poland | 279 |
Austria | 299 |
Russia | 328 |
The House of Islam | 361 |
III | 370 |
A Japanese Feudalism | 435 |
B The Asiatic Mode of Production | 462 |
| 551 | |
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17th century Absolutism Absolutist administrative agrarian agriculture apparatus aristocracy army Austrian Bakufu Balkans became Bohemia boyar Brandenburg bureaucracy capital capitalist cent central China Chinese cities civil conquest countryside daimyō despotism devshirme dominated dynasty early modern epoch East East Prussia Eastern economic emerged Empire Engels England English Estates European feudal fief fiscal France French gentry Germany Habsburg henceforward Hohenzollern Hungary imperial India industry Islamic Italy Japan junker juridical labour land landowning class later London magnates manorial Marx mediaeval mercantile military mode of production monarchy nobility noble official onwards Ottoman Ottoman Empire peasant peasantry Poland Polish political population princes provinces Reformation region Renaissance revolution royal rulers rural Russia seigneurial Sejm serfdom Shogunate social formation society Spain Spanish structure Sweden Swedish szlachta taxes territorial timariots tion Tokugawa towns trade traditional troops Tsarist Turkish urban village virtually West Western Europe whole Zemsky Sobor