Small power diplomacy in seventeenth century Europe

War, State and Society in Liege is a fascinating case study of the consequences of war in the Prince-Bishopric of Liege and touches upon wider issues in early modern history, such as small power diplomacy in the seventeenth century and during the Nine Years' War.

For centuries, the small semi-independent Holy Roman Principality of Liege succeeded in preserving a non-belligerent role in European conflicts. During the Nine Years' War (1688-1697), however, Liege's leaders had to abolish the practice of neutrality. For the first time in its early modern history, the Prince-Bishopric had to raise a regular army, reconstruct ruined defence structures, and supply army contributions in both money and material.

The issues under discussion in War, State and Society in Liege offer the reader insight into how Liege politically protected its powerful institutions and how the local elite tried to influence the interplay between domestic and external diplomatic relationships.

This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).

About the Author
Roeland Goorts, PhD, studied at the KU Leuven and the University of Reading. His research focuses on medieval and early modern military history, especially in the Prince-Bishopric of Liege.

Reviews

Goorts provides a wealth of relevant empirical material on the internal politics and fiscal-military organization of the Prince-Bishopric of Liege that will prove valuable for historians working in this field.Bram van Besouw, BMGN - Low Countries Historical Review, 135(2). DOI: http://doi.org/10.18352/bmgn-lchr.10805

Goorts's War, State and Society in Liege is an important addition to our understanding of warfare during the early modern period, particularly in the age of Louis XIV, and of small states directly affected by such conflicts. While often portrayed as wars of maneuver and siege, Goorts's investigation of Liege during the Nine Years' War illustrates the complexities of late seventeenth-century warfare and the implications for those states caught in war's path. War, State and Society in Liege sheds new light not only on Louis XIV's wars, but on how small states coped with its challenges.John M. Stapleton, Jr., Journal of Military History, vol. 84, no. 4 (October 2020)

Much of the real value of Goorts's work lies in the amount of detail he is able to provide on the workings of the state, the network of local communities within the territory, and the economy, and on the impact of war on all three. He is able to trace the careers and fortunes of any number of minor characters who would normally never make it into more broadly focused works; he shows much of the human cost of war in individual localities. Taken as a whole, his work is a valuable addition to the scholarship on war and society in the early modern period.
James R. Smither, Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 74 , Issue 2 , Summer 2021 , pp. 633 - 634 , DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/rqx.2021.44

Par la masse d'informations qu'il apporte, le livre rendra d'indeniables services aux specialistes d'histoire militaire et diplomatique. Ses faiblesses rhetoriques n'oberent pas son apport a l'histoire de la neutralite. Nous disposons ici, grace au travail de R. Goorts, d'un eclairage essentiel sur l'histoire de l'espace mosan pris dans la tourmente des conflits entre la France, le Saint-Empire et les Provinces-Unies a la fin du XVIIe siecle.Thierry ALLAIN, Revue d'histoire moderne & contemporaine 69-1, janvier-mars 2022

Nevertheless, this book will undoubtedly spur researchers to more in-depth investigation, analysis, and comparison with other ecclesiastical and imperial, comparatively less neutral and more militarized, states. Michael Depreter, Early Modern Low Countries 6 (2022) 1, DOI 10.51750/emlc.12179

Book Information
ISBN 9789462701311
Author Roeland Goorts
Format Paperback
Page Count 418
Imprint Leuven University Press
Publisher Leuven University Press
Weight(grams) 715g
Dimensions(mm) 244mm * 170mm * 20mm