Abstract
The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation is one of the most long-lived political organizations in European history, yet it has been little researched within International Relations and other social sciences. Founded in 962 and formally dissolved in 1806, it underwent a series of mutations during its long history. This chapter deals mainly with the period between 1648 and 1763 when the Empire corresponded most closely to the ideal type of the compound republic, making it a suitable analogy for the United States of America and the European Union. In IR theory the HRE is mostly known through the idea that it disappeared through the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Over the past decade revisionist research has demonstrated this assertion and the idea that the Peace of Westphalia created the modern system of states to be myths (Krasner 1993, Duchhardt 1999, Osiander 2001a, Philpott 2001, Teschke 2003). The idea in IR and international law that the Empire was dissolved in 1648 is an inheritance brought over by Leo Gross from the German-Prussian historiography which extolled the virtues of the strong Prussian state and regarded alternative forms of rule as humiliating (Iggers 1983).
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