IAS Senior Fellow Tracey Sowerby (Oxford) and Jan Hennings publish new book on diplomatic history: Practices of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World c. 1410-1800.
Practices of Diplomacy appears in the Routledge Research in Early Modern History series. It offers a new contribution to the ongoing reassessment of early modern international relations and diplomatic history. The volume provides an examination of diplomatic culture from the Renaissance into the eighteenth century. It addresses three central and intertwined themes within early modern diplomacy: who and what could claim diplomatic agency and in what circumstances; the social and cultural contexts in which diplomacy was practised; and the role of material culture in diplomatic exchange. Together the chapters provide a broad geographical and chronological presentation of the development of diplomatic practices and, through a strong focus on the processes and significance of cultural exchanges between polities, demonstrate how it was possible for diplomats to negotiate the cultural codes of the courts to which they were sent.
The book will be presented at the panel ‘Diplomacy Between and Within Empires' at the fifth European Congress on World and Global History, Budapest 31 August - 3 September 2017.