Political Space in Pre-industrial Europe

This collection examines the potential and limitations of spatial approaches for the political history of preindustrial Europe. Adopting a broad definition of 'political', the volume concentrates on two key questions: Where did political exchange take place? And how did spatial dimensions affect political life in different periods and contexts? Taken together, the essays demonstrate that premodern Europeans made use of a much wider range of political spaces than is usually assumed, and that spatial dimensions provided key variables in political life. By bridging common gaps between periods and disciplines, the volume offers a timely and critical engagement with the ’spatial turn’ and a review of the potential and limits of spatial approaches for political history as a whole.