The Power of Necessity
The Power of Necessity
Exploring reason of state in a global monarchy, The Power of Necessity examines how thinkers and agents in the Spanish monarchy navigated the tension between political pragmatism and moral-religious principle. This tension lies at the very heart of Counter-Reformation reason of state. Nowhere was the need for pragmatic state management greater than in the overstretched Spanish Empire of the seventeenth century. However, pragmatic politics were problematic for a Catholic monarchy steeped in ideals of justice and divine justifications of power and kingship. Presenting a broad cast of characters from across Europe, and uniting published sources with a wide range of archival material, Lisa Kattenberg shows how non-canonical thinkers and agents confronted the political-moral dilemmas of their age by creatively employing the legitimizing power of necessity. Pioneering new ways of bridging the persistent gap between theory and practice in the history of political thought, The Power of Necessity casts fresh light on the struggle to preserve the monarchy in a modernizing world.
- Explores the close entanglement of political ideas and concrete contexts of deliberation and decision-making
- Introduces a varied cast of thinkers and agents from across Europe, beyond the traditional canon of political philosophers
- Unites published sources with a wide range of archival material
Product details
January 2023Hardback
9781316513149
325 pages
235 × 158 × 21 mm
0.58kg
Available
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Table of Contents
- 1. Introduction: politics between principle and pragmatism
- 2. Necessity and counter-reformation reason of state
- 3. 'The inexhaustible ocean of politics': Tacitus and the political counsel of history
- 4. Virgilio Malvezzi and the mosaics of morality and necessity
- 5. Experience, conscience and necessity: Spanish debates about peace or truce in the Netherlands
- Conclusion.
