The Holy Roman Empire, Reconsidered

Coy (history, College of Charleston, NC) and his American and German colleagues present essays that rehabilitate the image of the Holy Roman Empire during the Early Modern period. The authors of these essays argue that far from being in decline, the empire functioned throughout the Reformation and the Thirty Years War until the early nineteenth century, through the use of "symbolic communication." This included written communiques between the people and the emperor, the preservation of ceremonies and customs that emphasized continuity and the maintenance of a delicate balance of power among the member states. The articles help to make sense of what may seem trivial points of procedure, rooted in tradition and collective memory that bound the empire together. The effectiveness of the imperial governance is cogently displayed in the examples given. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Benjamin Marschke is an Associate Professor of History at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California. He has held fellowships from the DAAD, the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, and the Max Planck Institute for History. He has published Absolutely Pietist: Patronage, Factionalism, and State-Building in the Early Eighteenth-Century Prussian Army Chaplaincy (2005).