War, Diplomacy, and Knowledge in Habsburg Europe (18th and 19th Centuries)

FAIN: FT-259958-18

Suzanne Sutherland Duchacek
Middle Tennessee State University (Murfreesboro, TN 37132-0001)

Preparation for publication of a book-length study of 17th-century European military entrepreneurs, warfare, and diplomacy.

This study examines the social, cultural, and political impact of military contracting in the last great age of contracting prior to the modern era. In the seventeenth century, military entrepreneurs used private wealth, credit, and connections to raise and command regiments since war had become pervasive but rulers lacked large-scale standing forces. What forms of power emerge when contractors monopolize violence? How do their activities redefine the state and political allegiances? How did new forms of power influence other dynamic elements of early modern life, including the growth of science? Focusing on Italian military entrepreneurs in Austrian Habsburg service, this book argues that contractors innovated a new kind of expertise, military science. They undermined political allegiances and built new ties across regions. Military men contributed to a dizzying new mobility in Europe that destabilized traditional boundaries and opened up spaces for new ideas and practices.