This book offers a new perspective on the concept of modernity. Since its invention as a contrast to Antiquity or the Middle Ages, modernity has been tied to ideas of superiority, progress, and efficiency. As a counterpart to the Marxist history of class struggle, modernization theories have transformed modernity into an almost teleological concept of historical development. These strong connotations obstruct a clear look at other forms of modernity.

The contributions of the volume will show in a comparative perspective how modernity can also be understood and analyzed as multiple responses of societies and polities to organize themselves in facing ever more complex and integrated interactions at ever larger scales.

Provides a comprehensive review of the rapidly expanding theories of early modern state formation Includes in-depth discussions on how global trade, consumption and communication impacted on state formation Discusses alternative approaches on modernity, early modern states, institutions and agents of power

Autorentext

Veronika Hyden-Hanscho is Research Associate at the Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna. She holds the prestigious Elise-Richter Fellowship awarded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).

Werner Stangl is a lecturer of Economic History at the University of Graz, Austria, and from September 2022 works for CNRS-CREDA, Ile de France, within the project ANR-TopUrbi at EHESS. His main areas of research are colonial Spanish America, historical geography and digital humanities. 

Inhalt
Ideas and Identity.- Concepts and Viewpoints in Early Modern Iberian Imperial History and the Globalization of Historiographies.- Watchtowers in the Eighteenth-Century Philippines. Material Representations of Colonial State Power.- Agents of Modernities.- Piracy and Local Alliances in an Empire of Archipelagoes.- The Phoenix and the Eagle. Catalan Political Economy and the Habsburg Monarchy of Charles VI.- When a Snake is Cut into Pieces: Austria's Imperial Relations and the Downfall of Spain's First Minister Ensenada in 1754.- Monopoly Claims and Moral Economy: Extralegal Practice in British Global and Local Trade c. 1660-1800.- Formation of State Institutions.- Troublemakers in a State-Run Enterprise. Conflict Management and the Limits of Social Disciplining in the Königliches Lagerhaus Berlin, c. 17201760.- All Roads Lead to Mexico? The Postal Network of Late Colonial New Spain as an Integrated Communication Space.- A Parable and Ancient Fables: Shaping the Governance of Mining Activities and the Silver Trade in Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Century New Spain.- Administration of Mining, Science, and Technology in Europe in the Age of American Silver (15501700).- Glocal Economies.- The Peso or the Marsilie the Standard Currency Unit of the Armenian New Julfa Merchants?.- Foreign Merchants and the Introduction of New Hot Beverages in the Prince-Bishoprics of Münster and Paderborn during the long Eighteenth Century.- Lighter and Brighter: Indian Cottons in Brussels in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century.- Conclusion.- Formative Modernities in the Early Modern Atlantic and Beyond Critical Remarks on Old Concepts.