Download or read book Absolutism in Seventeenth-century Europe written by John Miller and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Annotation Most Seventeenth Century European Monarchs ruled territories which were culturally and institutionally diverse. Forced by the escalating scale of war to mobilise evermore men and money they tried to bring these territories under closer control, overriding regional and sectional liberties. This was justified by a theory stressing the monarchs absolute power and his duty to place the good of his state before particular interests. The essays of this volume analyse this process in states at very different stages of economic and political development and assess the great gulf that often existed between the monarchs power in theory and in practice.