Absolute Monarch Research Articles

Democratic Transitions and the Progress of Absolutism in Kant's Political Thought

Against several recent interpretations, I argue in this paper that Immanuel Kant's support for enlightened absolutism was a permanent feature of his political thought that fit comfortably within his larger philosophy, though he saw such rule as part of a transition to democratic self-government initiated by the absolute monarch himself. I support these contentions with (1) a detailed exegesis of Kant's essay “What is Enlightenment?” (2) an argument that Kantian republicanism requires not merely a separation of powers but also a representative democratic legislature, and (3) a demonstration that each stage of a democratic transition can potentially be in an absolute monarch's short-run self-interest. I conclude the paper by defending Kant's theory of democratization against charges of consequentialism and paternalism and by pointing out its similarity to other accounts of democratic transitions (for example, those of Samuel Huntington and Guillermo O'donnell), suggesting a previously unnoticed opportunity for cross-fertilization between political philosophy and comparative politics.

The Interdisciplinary Century: Tensions and Convergences in Eighteenth-Century Art, History and Literature

List of illustrations Acknowledgements Julia V. Douthwaite and Mary Vidal, Introduction: the history and current polemics of interdisciplinary work I. Knowledge networks and 'undisciplined objects' Daniel Rosenberg, We have never been interdisciplinary: encyclopedism and etymology in the eighteenth century and since James D. Herbert, Looking at Louis XIV looking: the unity of the disciplines under an absolute monarch Isabelle Michel-Evrard, Les ressources interdisciplinaires de l'etude de l'illustration au dix-huitieme siecle Mimi Hellman, Object lessons: French decorative art as a model for interdisciplinarity II. Rescuing the trivial Mary Sheriff, Disciplinary problems in the history of art, or what to do with rococo queens Jennifer Milam, Play between disciplines: the problem of the ludic in rococo art and Enlightenment culture III. The politics of interdisciplinarity Joan B. Landes, Trespassing: notes from the boundaries Mark Ledbury, But is it art history? Some thoughts on disciplines, tensions and territories in studies of eighteenth-century art IV. Defamiliarising the familiar Gregory S. Brown, Beaumarchais, social experience and literary figures in eighteenth-century public life Amy S. Wyngaard, Literary texts or historical documents? Revisiting the debates on Retif de La Bretonne V. Literature and law Joan I. Schwarz, Evidence and analysis for interdisciplinary research in eighteenth-century law and literature Miriam L. Wallace, 'Doing' history, or what I learned from the 1794 London Treason Trials Lisa Jane Graham, Scandal: law, literature and morality in the early Enlightenment VI. Centres and margins, on past and future Laurent Loty, Pour l'indisciplinarite David Andress, Can culture really explain politics? Interdisciplinary historiography, enlightenment and revolution Joan DeJean, On becoming a historian... Summaries List of works cited Index

George Herbert's Distemper: An Honest Shepherd's Remedy for Melancholy

George Herbert's Distemper:An Honest Shepherd's Remedy for Melancholy Anne-Marie Miller Blaise What a striking change there is in tone when one compares George Herbert's 1619 letter to his step-father and his advice to Arthur Woodnoth in continuing his living with the same Sir John Danvers twelve years later. The younger Herbert seems both flattered by his forthcoming Cambridge oratorship and eager to benefit from the prestige and sense of power of such employment: The Orators place . . . is the finest place in the University, though not the gainfullest; yet that will be about 30 l. per an. but the commodiousness is beyond the Revenue; for the Orator writes all the University Letters, makes all the Orations, be it to King, Prince . . ., he takes place next the Doctors . . . and sits above the Proctors.1 The mature priest of Bemerton, on the other hand, gives serene words of encouragement to a friend who doubts his usefulness in fighting against the extravagance of John Danvers in his second marriage and to whom Herbert had earlier boasted the merits of becoming public orator: "Though you want all success either in inclining or restraining, To desire good & endeavour it when we can doe no more, is to doe it" (p. 381). Commentators and biographers of Herbert have often wondered at such a transformation. The turning point in Herbert's life occurred in those years for which we have the least information. How can one account for Herbert's letting go of court hopes and committing himself not only to the Church but to the small parish of Bemerton? Had he simply lost all his patrons? Was it illness, as he himself claimed, that made him "unable to perform those Offices for which I came into the World"?2 Did the death of loved ones – especially that of his mother in 1627 – lead him to further relinquish worldly honors? Or was it all a matter of personal piety? Lynette Muir, who looks at George Herbert's life from a historical viewpoint, alongside that of his Cambridge days friend, Nicholas Ferrar, [End Page 59] dismisses the third hypothesis, the most attractive in building up Herbert's saintliness. Muir's answer to both men's simultaneous withdrawal from public life is political: they sought disengagement and a commitment to Christian separation as part of a reaction not against monarchy itself but Charles's monarchical absolutism. One may notice how such an interpretation substitutes political idealism – the Church becoming "a new satisfactory institutional identity" – for pureness of faith.3 Even Izaak Walton implicitly stated that Herbert's taking orders was to be linked to the loss of his patrons: God . . . in a short time put an end to the lives of two of his most obliging and most powerful friends, Lodowick, Duke of Richmond, and James, Marquess of Hamilton; and not long after him King James died also, and with them all Mr Herbert's Court hopes. So that presently he betook himself to a retreat from London, to a friend in Kent. . . . In this time of retirement he had many conflicts with himself, whether he should return to the painted pleasures of a life or betake himself to a study of Divinity and enter into the Sacred Orders?4 Of course, suggesting that Herbert may have chosen "the painted pleasures of a Court life" had he wished to do so, enhances the final decision of "Holy Mr Herbert." Cristina Malcolmson's biography of George Herbert reads as a serious challenge to traditional interpretations of those relatively mysterious years from 1624 to 1630 during which the poet abandoned his seat at Parliament and took up holy orders, accepting a modest church position and resigning his Cambridge oratorship in the process. She argues that the period emerges neither as a moment of disinterested retirement from public life, nor as deliberate disengagement, but rather as a time of continued "frustration at lack of preferment," whether in the Church or more worldly positions.5 While I am greatly indebted to Malcolmson in what follows, I would like to suggest yet another reading of these years which shows that apparently conflicting interpretations are not in fact mutually exclusive...

The Political Role of Oil and the House of Saud

The kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a monarchy characterized by exceptionally important role of royal family, the of Saud. Members of dynasty fill most key positions and maintain a near monopoly over political activity in country. To make matters worse, royal family has followed a policy of extreme discretion, making it structures, divisions and duties more in matter of speculation than of fact. Non royal political affairs are equally obscure, because political activity outside royal family is banned. Hence, Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy with an unelected consultative council that acts like a parliament. Political parties are banned and press freedoms are limited. The king of Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarch within constraints of his family's support and laws of Islam. He is head of state and chief executive of government. There is no democracy in government, but democratic spirit in human relationships of Bedouin tribe prevails. The king is highly approachable to all his subjects irrespective of their social status. Hence question arises why House of Saud is so strong and why Size of State so large in Saudi Arabia. This paper is an attempt to analyse causes which makes House of Saud, concentration of almost all political activity of Saudi Arabia.

Der „unzähmbare“ Leviathan

Hobbes’ theory of the state is based on natural principles, i.e. everybody’s search for security and peace. The eternally valid rules of peaceful coexistence between men - the natural laws - are even binding on the sovereign, Hobbes maintains. I intend to show that, though there is no doubt in Hobbes’ assertion of natural law, the definition of civil law, i.e. the sovereign’s will, is not affected by this fact. Hobbes’ belief, that the sovereign - carrying out his task to guarantee peace - will in most cases respect the laws of nature, although he can in no way be obliged to do so in terms of civil law, is said to be unconvincing. I argue, that it can be explained with regard to the sovereign’s situation, which, unlike the naturale state, is one of complete security. This means that war as a result of the endless search for more power is, in Hobbes’ view, unnecessary for an absolute monarch.

Bridging Two Worlds: Stephen Larigaudelle Dubuisson, Emigre Missionary

Aristocrats who survived the era of revolution (1775-1848) experienced the collapse of several worlds. The political ideas of the Enlightenment found expression in a call for liberty, equality, and representative government, which challenged and overturned the rule of monarchies and aristocracies. The Reign of Terror, the establishment of the Directory, and its overthrow by Napoleon in 1799 culminated in a new Empire. A slave revolt in Saint-Domingue led to emigrations and massacres of the white elite and the establishment of the Republic of Haiti in 1803. In December, 1805, Napoleon defeated Prussia and Austria; by 1810 his empire was at its height. The son of a Corsican lawyer, he married an Austrian archduchess. Napoleon I fell in 1815, and the Bourbon monarchy was restored, but the trend toward representative government continued in France and elsewhere in Europe. The rational and scientific ideas of the Enlightenment found expression in the overthrow of Catholic religious institutions, beginning in 1790, when the National Assembly of France passed the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, and continuing during the Reign of Terror with the systematic de-Christianization of education and public life.1 Under Napoleon the Catholic Church was reinstated by the 1801 Concordat, but after the invasion of the Papal States in 1808 Pope Pius VII became his captive and spent 1812-1814 at Fontainebleau. In the Old World, the conservative Ultramontane movement emerged to oppose liberalism in ideology as well as republican and democratic governments. Its proponents, such as Joseph de Maistre, extolled obedience to absolute monarchs and placed the pope above kings in the rigid hierarchy of authority. Independence and freedom of religion and of the press were intolerable. Conversely, in the New World, the overthrow of British rule in the United States increased religious tolerance. Prohibitions against public practice of Catholicism were lifted, and Maryland and Virginia passed acts of religious freedom in 1776 and 1786, respectively. A large Catholic population moved from private worship to new churches, and priests were needed for religious instruction and celebration of the liturgy. Sons of Catholic families could obtain higher education at Georgetown College instead of studying abroad. Unlike conservative European Catholicism, a hallmark of American Catholicism was an appreciation of the importance of freedom of religion and the separation of church and state.2 Many Protestants chose to worship with their Catholic neighbors and to educate their children in Catholic schools. An aristocratic Ultramontane, Etienne (Stephen) Larigaudelle Dubuisson, survived the revolutions in Saint-Domingue and France and the rise and fall of Napoleon. In 1815 he entered the Society of Jesus to become an emigre missionary in republican Maryland.3 Pursuing his vocation in the Old and New Worlds, Dubuisson bridged their dissimilar worlds of religion and politics. This article examines his career, his parish work in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland, his preaching, agency in miraculous cures, historical writing, and European tour as a mission fundraiser.4 Dubuisson was from a genteel family in Haiti with connections to the minor nobility. He was born in Saint-Domingue on October 21, 1786,5 and raised in Nantes. His parents, slave-holding Creoles, emigrated to France in 1791 before the slave uprising, with at least five children, including Stephen. They were in Brittany shortly after the Reign of Terror in 1794.6 He described himself as born to affluence but raised in the school of hard knocks and imperfectly educated. He was fluent in English by the age of 15 and also spoke German, Italian, and Spanish. At age 18 or 19 (1804-1805), he passed the agregation examination at the Congregation de la Sainte-Vierge at Nantes.7 The deficiencies in his education were remedied by course work at Georgetown College. From May, 1809, to March, 1810, Dubuisson was employed in the receiver general's office of the French Army in Germany and the Army of the Rhine. …

Orientalism in French Classical Drama by Michèle Longino (review)

MLR, 99.1, 2004 193 Rome and the Republic, with her personal grief for her loved ones being a reflection of a greater grief forthe fate of Rome itself,and the loss of liberty.All in all, this is an excellent edition of one of Garnier's least-known and least-studied tragedies. Penarth Richard Griffiths Orientalism in French Classical Drama. By Michele Longino. (Cambridge Studies in French) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2000. xii + 275pp. ?47-5?ISBN 0-521-80721-2. The key word in this title is 'classical', and its precise meaning in context is crucial to Michele Longino's thesis. For this is indeed an essai a these,and any reader hoping to broaden the range of his or her knowledge of oriental works written forthe stage in the French seventeenth century will bedisappointed. 'Classical', rather,means something adopted by the French nation as a tool of self-definition and, indeed, of self-assertion, and what the seven canonical plays treated are deemed to effectis an understanding of Frenchness as mediated by and yet superior to the 'Other', as incarnated by the Muslim Turk. Longino begins by presenting Corneille's Medee as offeringlessons for new merchant-travellers and diplomats in the scholarly figure of Pollux, as opposed to the plunderer Jason. Two motifs of the whole series of essays are also introduced at this stage: the role of Medee as a foreign woman, seen thereby as doubly an outsider; and the subliminal mental preparation which the ethos of such plays affords for subsequent colonialist expansion. Le Cid is then interpreted as containing a commentary on contemporary politics, with Fernand as absolute monarch, and Rodrigue, like a seafaring merchant, standing up against the age-old threat of the piratical Moors. The single comedy treated, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, is taken back to its origins in recent memoirs, in particular those of the 'envoye extraordinaire' D'Arvieux, charting as they do the developing if fragile French trading links with the Ottoman empire. The two Berenice plays offerstudies in 'gendered geography' (p. 163), and here Longino convincingly demonstrates parallels between East/West and female/male polarities. Within that pattern, France sees itself reflected in Rome as a 'phallic centre', Racine's Antiochus is emasculated, and 'the East [is] a woman, good for the having' (p. 177). There are caveats to be expressed about some details of this chapter, but as a whole it carries conviction. The same is less true ofwhat follows, as Longino investigates occurrences of the word 'detour' in Bajazet and Mithridate, and concludes somewhat opaquely that the two plays offer'a one-way detour through the "Other" in order to arrive at "France"' (p. 223). Yet here too there is fascinating contemporary material about the encoding of letters, a persuasive argument that Bajazet is fundamentally a play about communication, and a reassertion of the staging of political issues in Mithridate, in the figure of whose hero the ambiguity of French attitudes towards Turkey is incarnated. Overall, the mastery of the complex etat present which informs the whole area of debate is impressive, as is the range of contemporary material cited. Plot summaries are provided at the head ofeach chapter, together with a quaintly pedagogical list of 'questions to ponder'. And if on several occasions Longino's arguments seem to be straining at their limits, this is none the less a book which has the merit of acknowledging its more tendentious hypotheses, and at the very least of offeringa cumulatively argued sequence of 'answers to ponder'. St Catherine's College, Oxford Richard Parish ...

"Ese tan borrado sobrescrito": The Deconstruction of Lope's Religious Theater in El retablo de las maravillas and El rufián dichoso

Lope de Vega's religious theater ( autos sacramentales and comedias de santos ) worked in parallel fashion to the comedia nueva to promote ecclesiastical and monarchical absolutism. The ideological effectiveness of the religious plays was grounded in their ability to create the sensation of divine presence for the audience, especially in the use of apparitions. Cervantes systematically rejects this religious theater. On the one hand, in "El retablo de las maravillas" he ridicules the audience of the auto sacramental for accepting the presence of Biblical figures on stage, displaying an empty frame where the final apotheosis would usually appear. In El rufián dichoso , he goes further, deconstructing the conventional comedia de santos by staging sainthood as a series of performances whose traces are only subsequently drawn together to create an artificial image of holiness. In reconstructing Cervantes's sustained critique of Lope's religious theater, this paper also examines the confrontation between the two writers concerning the role of both the sacramental and hagiographic genres in the construction of an emergent national identity. (WC)

Iglesia y poder civil en el Río de la Plata.Documentos y bibliografía para una controversia

The study focuses on Church-State relationship, based on a group of academic and popular documents produced in Rio de la Plata during the second half of the 18th century, a period considered to have the greatest amount of speculative theorizing on monarchical absolutism, and coinciding with the Enlightenment controversy. These documents throw light on the problem of some historiography theses which leads the author of the study to observe that some nuances of the debate require closer attention. Some general conclusions are indeed acceptable. For example, that in the mid-18th century, there was a break in the tradition of the sixteenth-century school of law. Another plausible conclusion is that sacred absolutism had no positive repercussions. On the other hand, there was indeed a moderate influx of Encyclopedist ideas. Hence, none of the extreme theses regarding the 1810 movement (whether inspired by Suarez' «agreement» or by the Encyclopedists) can claim to be exclusive. There were other strong and complex influences which call for a more careful analysis.

The Absolute Monarch and Thai Society: A Historical Survey on Political and Cultural Position and Role of Thai Kings before 1932

The Absolute Monarch and Thai Society: A Historical Survey on Political and Cultural Position and Role of Thai Kings before 1932

The Role of Education in Political Stability

Currently the dominant interpretation of Hobbes in the field of moral and political philosophy is as a social contract theorist: that he legitimates moral rules and sovereign power by arguing that we would agree we are better off obeying a sovereign than living in a state of nature, and that we are best off if that sovereign is an absolute monarch. There are interesting alternatives to this reading of Hobbes—Warrender’s divine-command interpretation and Boonin-Vail’s virtue theory interpretation, to name just two—but it is not my purpose here to debate their relative merits. Rather, I want to comment on one of the main features of the social contract view, namely, the means of maintaining political stability. According to the contract view the state of nature can be seen as a prisoner’s dilemma or some similar game situation in which the players find it rational to break their agreements and consequently generate a war of all against all. The solution is to set up a sovereign who will make it rational to cooperate, and the way the sovereign does this is by threatening them with punishment if they fail to keep their word. The textual support for this emphasis on punishment as the keeper of order is both ample and memorable. For example, Hobbes says that

Delegation of Regulatory Powers in a Mixed Polity

It is a common place of academic and political discourse that the EC/EU, being neither a parliamentary democracy nor a separation‐of‐powers system, must be a sui generis polity. Tocqueville reminds us that the pool of original and historically tested constitutional models is fairly limited. But however limited, it contains more than the two systems of rule found among today's democratic nation states. During the three centuries preceding the rise of monarchical absolutism in Europe, the prevalent constitutional arrangement was ‘mixed government’—a system characterised by the presence in the legislature of the territorial rulers and of the ‘estates’ representing the main social and political interests in the polity. This paper argues that this model is applicable to the EC, as shown by the isomorphism of the central tenets of the mixed polity and the three basic Community principles: institutional balance, institutional autonomy and loyal cooperation among European institutions and Member States. The model is then applied to gain a better understanding of the delegation problem. As is well known, a crucial normative obstacle to the delegation of regulatory powers to independent European agencies is the principle of institutional balance. By way of contrast, separation‐of‐powers has not prevented the US Congress from delegating extensive rule‐making powers to independent commissions and agencies. Comparison with the philosophy of mixed government explains this difference. The same philosophy suggests the direction of regulatory reform. The growing complexity of EC policy making should be matched by greater functional differentiation, and in particular by the explicit acknowledgement of an autonomous ‘regulatory estate’. At a time when the Commission aspires to become the sole European executive, as in a parliamentary system, it is particularly important to stress the importance of separating the regulatory function from general executive power. The notion of a regulatory estate is meant to emphasise this need.

Charles XI and the Swedish Estates 1680–1693

SUMMARY In this article Anthony Upton examines the relations between Charles XI of Sweden, who was systematically attempting to extend and justify his absolute powers after 1680, and the Swedish Estates. It is often assumed that in early modern Europe the relations of absolute monarchs with their representative assemblies were antagonistic and constituted a power struggle over the basis of sovereign power in society. The article suggests that the Swedish experience did not conform to this pattern, but that the king had little difficulty in securing the endorsement of his Estates for his claims to authority, apparently without resort to force or intimidation on any significant scale. It then suggests ways in which contemporary mentalities, and the specific situation of Sweden in this period, combined to produce this outcome.

'An absolute monarch in his school': images of teacher authority in the seventeenth-century English Character literature

(2001). 'An absolute monarch in his school': images of teacher authority in the seventeenth-century English Character literature. History of Education: Vol. 30, No. 4, pp. 321-338.

'An absolute monarch in his school': images of teacher authority in the seventeenth-century English Character literature

'An absolute monarch in his school': images of teacher authority in the seventeenth-century English Character literature

Autocracy under Siege: Security Police and Opposition in Russia, 1866-1905

Autocracy under Siege examines the role of the security service in the titanic struggle between the regime and those dedicated to the defeat of monarchical absolutism. From the first terrorist attempt on the life of a Russian emperor in 1866 through the seismic upheaval of 1905, Daly traces the reaction, expansion, and evolution of the security police in the face of the increased antigovernment activity that threatened the continued survival of the regime.

“O homines ad servitutem paratos!”: Bajazet and the Scandal of Slave Rule

Of all Racine's plays, Bajazet is, according to the ARTFL database, the one where the word esclave occurs most frequently. (2) More than a fashionable addition to the series of successful syntheses of classical dramaturgy and galant aesthetics with which Racine had hitherto regaled his audiences and readers, Bajazet is a careful study in political theory with a pointed lesson: when slaves rule, things go wrong. (3) Bajazet thus continues the interest that Racine shows elsewhere in the links between absolute sovereignty and absolute submission. In Britannicus, for instance, he relies on the implied message that Louis XIV, the absolute monarch, is a good king because he liberates his population from slavery, i.e. their routine harassment and exploitation at the hands of the feudal lords and the horrible condition of civil war that would accompany any state disturbance (such as those of the Fronde). The mere fact of his being in charge frees the populace from coercion, fear and want. Freedom and absolute power go together. The sovereignty of Louis XIV undoes the dominium of the French feudal lords (dominium here used to mean the power of a master over his slave), much as Augustus Caesar had done. (4) Parallels with Augustus were part and parcel of the seventeenth-century encomia of Louis XIV, constituting key components of the image-complex--what Jean-Marie Apostolides aptly calls la mythistoire--that kept the state apparatus operating smoothly. With respect to Augustus, readers will remember the bombastic opening of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti: At the age of 19, I, Augustus Caesar, acting on my own responsibility and at my own expense, raised an army with which I championed the liberty of the Roman republic against the tyranny of a powerful faction that had long oppressed them. (Annos undeviginti natus exercitum privato consilio et privata impensa comparavi per quem rem publicam dominatione factionis oppressam in libertatem vindicavi.) (Anc. 1.1) In other words, Augustus Caesar's imperium liberates Rome from the dominium (or rather the dominatio) of the many factions that terrorized the populace in the aftermath of Julius Caesar's assassination. A similar mechanism is at work in absolutist France, propagating the view of the king as a guarantor of freedom. Racine's interest in this Hobbesian scenario affords us some clues regarding the setting of the play in Turkey. The argument that the topic was fashionable in 1670 is true as far as it goes, but it does not go very far.(5) In Racine's political model, the Ottoman empire acts as a latter-day equivalent of the Rome of the first century C.E., which is to say the same topic that had furnished him with the plots of Britannicus and Berenice. In this respect, the Ottoman Empire would have been of interest precisely because it provided an intriguing test case. (6) Here was a vast, centrally ordered empire, built on a model similar to the one to which French kings had aspired, with one remarkable difference: its formal dependence on the institution of slavery, to the point where the bulk of the ruling class and warrior (askeri) caste were slaves. This paradoxical status of enslaved or formerly enslaved persons rising to positions of power seems to have had a special attraction for Racine. (7) In both Britannicus and Berenice, he does hot mask his contempt for the freedmen who influence imperial Roman state policy. The opposition is there in Bajazet, too, but the emphasis shifts from imperial freedmen to slaves outright. Similarly, Paul Rycaut, whose History of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire was one of Racine's sources, repeatedly emphasizes the servile nature and origin of the Ottoman state, adding that the Sultan himself had slave origins. (8) His account deserves quoting at length: The absolute power in the Prince implies an exact obedience in the Subjects; and to instill and confirm that Principle no art or industry is wanting in the education of those who are placed in the Seraglio, with design of preferment to Offices and great Charges; so that even the Oath of Obedience which Friers and other Religious men vow to their Superiors at their first initiation into Ecclesiastical Orders, is not more exactly or more devoutly observed or possessed by them, than this Doctrine of submission to the will of their great Master is carefully taught to his young Scholars who stand Probationers and Candidates for all the Government of the Empire. …

ALS diagnostic criteria, El Escorial, and Philip II of Spain: a historical perspective.

El Escorial, a magnificent palace-monastery in central Spain, was the setting in 1990 for a meeting of ALS experts who developed a consensus document called the El Escorial ALS Diagnostic Criteria. El Escorial was originally conceived by the Spanish Habsburg monarch, Philip II (1527-1598), as an elaborate burial place for his parents, Emperor Charles V and Isabella. It soon became a symbol of the Spanish empire and Philip's Catholic leadership of the Counter-Reformation. El Escorial included a monastery, palace, basilica, mausoleum, seminary, library, and hospital. Nothing was spared by Philip in obtaining the finest examples of religious art, architecture, music, and books. Philip, as absolute monarch, inherited a vast empire which stretched over Europe, Asia, North Africa, and the New World. His style of personal micro-management and poor economic planning hampered his ability to manage both national and foreign affairs. Philip had a special interest in medicine, including royal hospitals, improved government standards for physicians, medicinal plants, and the health benefits of alchemy and sacred relics. El Escorial's grand scale has generated both illustrious praise and critical condemnation over the last four centuries. Its place in Spanish and world history is assured.

Dilemmas of Empire 1850–1918. Power, Territory, Identity

In the period 1850-1918 two types of empire existed. The first is the one familiar to modern students of imperialism. The West European maritime empires had their origins in the sixteenth century and by 1900 were the world's leading industrial and financial powers. Britain was the model empire of this type, with the French and Dutch as lesser variations on the same theme. By 1914, Germany and the USA, though in important ways different from the classic West European maritime empires, could nevertheless be considered as falling within this category of polity. But another type of empire also existed, whose genealogy was far older and indeed stretched back into antiquity. These were huge, multi-ethnic polities, governed by (in principle) centralized bureaucracies and absolute monarchs, and ruling overwhelmingly agrarian societies. In South America and India, empires of this sort had already been destroyed by European invaders. By 1900 two other empires of this type, the Ottomans and the Ching, seemed doomed to follow the same path to extinction.' The Russian Empire was a hybrid, sharing characteristics of both these types of empire. Russia was a European great power and had unequivocally enjoyed this status since the mid-eighteenth century. By 1914 she was the second largest empire in the world. Her power and her territorial expansion were based to a great extent on her successful absorption of European techniques, technologies and ideas. Christian Russia was certainly closer in culture to Christian Europe than to the worlds of Islam and Confucianism. Since the eighteenth century, her elites had been westernized and belonged unequivocally to Europe. The victims of Russian expansion generally Muslim or animist and often nomadic were very similar in these respects to the societies overrun by European power since 1500. And yet, in many ways Russia belonged to the second type of empire too. Her huge continental plain, her centralized and absolutist bureaucratic monarchy, her economic backwardness, and a popular culture which differed considerably from that of Catholic and Protestant Europe all marked her off sharply from the maritime empires and their German and American peers. For Russia's own rulers probably the single most pressing question in this period was whether their state would join the first, 'modern' group of empires or find itself relegated to the second category of 'moribund' ones.

Enlightenment and militarism in the social thought of Frederick II

The war has very important place in the social thought of Fredrick II Hohenzollern, King of Prussia. For him, the inescapable fate of mankind is to make war. His evaluations of this fact were very different. He condemned it due to his identification of the war with barbarity and fanaticism. But he knew also how to justify the existence of war and even to ascribe positive functions to it - like improving reason and developing virtues, such as courage, bravery, etc. Maybe the most interesting thing is Frederick's readiness to justify conquest of foreign territories. Good reason for a just conquest could be even the sole increase of the power of enlightened ruler. Frederick's political philosophy offered the explanation for this. The absolute monarch, being the head of the state should have no doubts about irrationality of almost all the historical events. Therefore, his state-power must be completely egoistic and mechanically antagonized or united with other state-powers. Like the powers in whole universe, the state-powers have nothing in common except to fight with each other or join temporarily agglomerations. That was one of the main paradoxes of Frederick's political philosophy: enlightened actors it referred to were rational only insofar they act as an unconscious natural powers.