The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe’s History

"Yes. Peter Wilson is one of the best British experts of German history, and this book is a masterpiece. All of the reviews praised this book for its thematic breadth and chronological scope. It is very unusual to describe the history of the Holy Roman Empire from its medieval beginnings to its dissolution in 1806. It is a challenge, of course, for a non-medievalist to tell an overarching story of the medieval and early modern Empire, and it is all the more challenging because Peter Wilson does not follow a chronological order. He has a huge section called the “Ideal.” It was more or less the myth of continuity that constituted the identity of ‘the Empire’ over time. There was very little structural continuity, he argues. Then there is a section about belonging and borders, a section on governance, one on society, and finally a chapter on the afterlife of the Empire. That can make it difficult to navigate through the book, because you don’t have a chronological narrative. But it is very illuminating and inspiring. The book is extremely detailed and elaborate–really admirable. “This book is a masterpiece” What also makes it unique, I think, is that it is about Europe’s history, not just German history. The Empire comprised far more regions than what we know as Germany in the 19th century, not to mention the present Federal Republic. Peter Wilson also makes very clear how fluid the character of the federation was. There weren’t even territorial borders in the strict, modern sense. One might say that he downplays the turning point around 1500, which was a landmark, because, as I said, there were a couple of reforms that established an institutionally stable order that did not exist in the Middle Ages. Maybe he downplays this a little bit too much—I think that would be the criticism of medievalists and early modernists. Another thing I really like about the book is that he does not tell this old nationalistic story about the great medieval times and then the decline in the early modern period. This is the old nationalist narrative he does not repeat. But nor does he make the opposite mistake of romanticizing the early modern empire and describing it as an order of peace, tolerance, rule of law and so forth. Since he is British, he has a sober and distanced view on the Empire, which makes it all the more valuable for German readers."