Changes in religious, political and commercial spheres in early modern Europe

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The early modern period in Europe, i.e. from the Reformation in the sixteenth century to the time of the French Revolution in the late eighteenth century, has often been divided into two parts : before and after the Peace of Westphalia. The earlier half is described as the time of European-wide religious war, while the latter part is seen as the age of emerging nation states and of the enlightenment. As a corollary to this, historical phenomena in the latter period tend to be explained mainly according to their national context, and the influence of religion is downplayed.This project aimed to encompass religious, political and commercial developments and experiences in the latter half of the early modern period. How did the role of religion change in a more 'political' Europe? What was the role of transnational networks and individuals' allegiances in the emerging modern nation states? And how did expansion of the commercial sphere affect people's experience?In order to answer these q … More uestions, we analysed the roles of religious, political and commercial networks at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in France (1685) and the Glorious Revolution in England (1688-89) ; these two events were deeply related and had Europe-wide impact. The project brought together a wide range of international research and expertise with the aim of exploring the European dimension and comparisons with other areas. With the help of ten historians, we organised an international symposium "Rethinking the Glorious Revolution in a European Context" on 21 March 2006 (key speakers were Professor Tony Claydon of the University of Bangor and Dr David Onnekink of the Universities of Leiden and Utrecht) and a symposium "Rethinking the early modern Europe in the 1680s : roles of political, religious and commercial networks and spheres of their influence" on 19 December 2009 (involving all members of the project). Furthermore we published some of our research results as Odysseus, Journal of Area Studies, the University of Tokyo, vol 14, special issue 1. We believe these works show the importance of transnational aspects in religious, political and commercial developments and experiences of the latter half of early modern period and represent a significant attempt to overcome the limits of historical understanding inherent in the framework of national history. Less