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.