Vienna and Versailles: The Courts of Europe's Dynastic Rivals, 1550-1780 (New Studies in European History)

Drawing together a wealth of unpublished material in a comparative framework, this volume recreates the life of the courtiers and servants of the imperial court in Vienna and the royal court in Paris-Versailles from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. It reveals how the royal households operated at the heart of the early modern state and offers original approaches to understanding statebuilding and the concept of "absolutism."