Practices of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World C.1410-1800

Practices of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World offers a new contribution to the ongoing reassessment of early modern international relations and diplomatic history. Divided into three parts, it provides an examination of diplomatic culture from the Renaissance into the eighteenth century and presents the development of diplomatic practices as more complex, multifarious and globally interconnected than the traditional state-focused, national paradigm allows.

The volume 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 essays provide a broad geographical and chronological presentation of the development of diplomatic practices and, through a strong focus of the processes and significance of cultural exchanges between polities, demonstrate that it was possible for diplomats to negotiate the cultural codes of the courts to which they were sent.

This exciting collection brings together new and established scholars of diplomacy from different academic traditions. It will be essential reading for all students of diplomatic history.

Tracey A. Sowerby is currently a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Central University, Budapest. She is the author of Renaissance and Reform in Tudor England: The Careers of Sir Richard Morison (c.1513-1556) (2010) and was PI on the AHRC funded project ‘Textual Ambassadors: Cultures of Diplomacy and Literary Writing in the Early Modern World’. Her forthcoming publications include The Tudor Diplomatic Corps and Tudor Diplomatic Culture.

Jan Hennings is Assistant Professor of History at Central European University, Budapest. His publications include Russia and Courtly Europe: Ritual and the Culture of Diplomacy, 1648-1725 (Cambridge, 2016).