Into History’s Abyss: The Decline of Great Modern Empires: Spain, Poland, and the Holy Roman Empire
This set of lectures will explore the declining fortunes of three of the great European
empires of the early modern period: Spain, Poland-Lithuania, and the Holy Roman
empire. Each achieved unprecedented heights of power only to see their influence fall
dramatically in the 17th and 18th centuries. Military decline, economic paralysis, and
political instability, decay and irrelevance led to the dissecting of Poland in the 1790s,
the abolition of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, and the evisceration of Spain’s
colonial empire in the 19th century, thus completing a disturbing and yet essential
chapter in the history of modern Europe.