About the Author

Peter Wilson

Reviews

"In a tightly argued historiographical introduction, Wilson points out that it is an abstraction that has been readily employed by generations of scholars without any serious attempt at definition. He attempts to fill this gap by representing asolutism as a distinct stage in the state-building process, during which monarchs used court display to project an image of power and majesty that mixed hard substance with mere pretension. The author reserves a special niche for the period of "enlightened absolutism," which effectively fortified the region's monarchs from the appeal of the French Revolution. This is a very well written and intelligent essay, once which might, however, challenge the analytical skills of the average university student.."
-"C. Ingrao, Purdue University, July 2001