Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Early Modern Democracy in the Grisons
  • Cited by 16
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
October 2009
Print publication year:
1995
Online ISBN:
9780511523335
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511523335
Subjects:
Political Theory, Area Studies, European History after 1450, History, European Studies, Politics and International Relations
Series:
Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History
Information

Book description

The Freestate of the Three Leagues in the Grisons, a rural confederation in the Swiss Alps, was one of the most unusual political entities in early modern Europe. In the sixteenth century, its inhabitants enjoyed popular sovereignty and remarkable local autonomy, and many of them insisted on political equality among citizens, and on political leaders' responsibilities to their communities. The author of this 1995 book uses pamphlets and political documents to trace the Freestate's evolution, focusing on its institutional structure and on the political language used by its inhabitants. This language included radical statements about 'democracy' and rule by the 'common man'. Even so, the Freestate participated in contemporary European political developments; but because it was different, it provides new perspectives on political ideas in sixteenth-century Europe. It represents a political culture distinct from both absolutism and later liberal ideas.

Reviews

"...an important book about a region which has been much neglected among English-speaking scholars. Randolph Head draws on a welath of German secondary works and rich, local, archival resources that provide new insights into the communal politics of this alpine republic." Canadian Journal of History

"Head narrates this story of Grison democracy in vivid and lucid prose. He shows a mature command of scholarship....a good social and institutional history of the Grisons." Central European History

"...a detailed and fascinating examination of the origins and flourishing of communalism....All in all, this book is a fine piece of work." American Historical Review

"...an important contribution to the debate on the role and effects of communalism on both the old European social and political order and the development of modern parliamentarianism and republicanism." Holger Th. Gräf, Sixteenth Century Journal

"This work is a masterpiece. It is an engaging and informative study that should be considered indispensable to historians of early modern European political culture. It should also be considered an important companion study to the works of such historians as Thomas Brady and Peter Bickle....[A]n extremely learned and convincing work of history." Jeffrey E. Ford, Sixteenth Century Journal

"This work serves both as an excellent introduction to an important and atypical early modern state and as a nuanced interpretation of 'communal' political practices and culture in counterpoint to established historiographical models...excellent study of Alpine democratic values" The Historian

...this book provides an important example of political thinking based neither in the city nor the nation-state, but in a rural setting in which peasants negotiate social relations, not through rebellion, but within the framework of regular political institutions." Rebecca Boone, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"This excellent study of Alpine democratic values highlights the distance between early modern communalism and modern democratic models grounded in individual natural rights." Peter G. Wallace, The Historian

"This excellent study of Alpine democratic values highlights the distance between early modern communalism and modern democratic models grounded in individual natural rights." Peter G. Wallace, The Historian

"Head's approach is a convincing one. His study treats the political culture at three different levels: that of the constitutional institutions, that of popular actions, and that of the political language." Andreas WÜrgler, Jrnl of Modern History

Refine List

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

Contents

Contents

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 0
Total number of PDF views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

Book summary page views

Total views: 0 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

Usage data cannot currently be displayed.