The Problem of "Enlightened Absolutism" and the German States

Abstract

Among early modern historians few controversies have endured so long and resolved so little as the ongoing debate over enlightened absolutism. Over the past century there has been widespread disagreement over both the motivation and sincerity of those later eighteenth-century rulers who professed to be converts to Enlightenment thought. At the same time, many scholars have questioned the compatibility of Enlightenment ideals with any form of authoritarian government, especially one that places limits on the freedom of the individual. For these reasons, there is still no consensus on whether enlightened despotism can stand as a conceptually meaningful political classification distinct from the forms of absolutism prevalent during the age of Louis XIV. In examining and analyzing the judgments of those scholars who have dealt with this phenomenon, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the task of reaching a consensus has been complicated by an underlyiIlg clash of national cultural and historical perspectivesS a cleavage that has pitted German historians against the majority of their colleagues from France, Great Britain, and the United States. It would appear that progress