Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Prussia
Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Prussia
Looking for an inspection copy?
This title is not currently available for inspection.
How did as small and backward a state as Prussia transform itself to compete successfully in war against states with far greater human and financial resources? Richard Gawthrop finds the answer to this perennial question in the creation of a unique political culture, in which service to the Prussian state took precedence over all other relationships and commitments. The campaign to inculcate the new ideology of disciplined energetic obedience to the state authority derived its moral vision and institutional forms from Lutheran Pietism, a German version of ascetic Protestantism strongly influenced by English Puritanism. This work describes systematically how the collaboration between Pietism and the Prussian state not only led to an increase in the latter's power but also laid the cultural basis for the subsequent political modernization of Germany.
- A comprehensive treatment of origins of Prussian political culture
- German reunification has prompted great interest in this general topic
- Important survey of relationship between religion/doctrinal belief and state-formation
Product details
October 1993Hardback
9780521431835
320 pages
234 × 156 × 19 mm
0.63kg
1 map
Available
.jpg)
Table of Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1. The German territorial state in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
- 2. Reformed confessionalism and the reign of the Great Elector
- 3. The nature of the pre-1713 Hohenzollern state
- 4. Lutheran confessionalism
- 5. Spenerian Pietism
- 6. From Spener to Francke
- 7. Halle Pietism I: ideology and indoctrination
- 8. Halle Pietism II: growth and crisis
- 9. Pietist-Hohenzollern collaboration
- 10. The impact of Pietist pedagogy on the Prussian army and bureaucracy
- 11. Civilian mobilization and economic development during the reign of Frederick William I
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index.
