Author: dcroxton
Somaliland
If you’re like me, when you saw the title of this post you wondered, “Has the country of Somalia changed its name?” But, no, Somaliland is not an alternative name for Somalia, but rather the name for a region that is fighting for independence from Somalia (see map at right). I do not intend this …
Sovereignty and Separatists: Abkhazia and South Ossetia
Independence movements have been a lot on my mind since the harsh European reaction to Catalonian independence. Actually, independence movements have always been a lot on my mind; one of the main reasons I wanted to study the Peace of Westphalia was to learn about how the European map achieved its modern shape. One aspect …
Sovereignty and Separatists: Abkhazia and South OssetiaRead More
Catalonia and Westphalia
I recently learned that Catalonia is scheduled to vote on independence on October 1st, which is less than a week away. How is this related to the Peace of Westphalia? Very closely, as the fate of Catalonia was perhaps the touchiest part of the negotiations, and was certainly the main reason France and Spain could …
Konrad Repgen, RIP
With sadness, I report the death of one of the giants of the history of the Peace of Westphalia, Konrad Repgen. He passed away on Sunday, April 2nd in Bonn, his home for the last 50 years, at the age of 93. In the early 1960’s, he and his advisor, Max Braubach, began the Vereinigung …
Spinoza: Philosopher of the Peace of Westphalia
“Everyone has by nature a right to act deceitfully. and to break his compacts, unless he be restrained by the hope of some greater good, or the fear of some greater evil.” This quotation, which sounds like it could come straight from Queen Christina’s aphorisms, is in fact from Baruch Spinoza’s “A theological-political tract.” I …
Not A Westphalian Moment
History repeats itself, and historians repeat each other. We are witnessing a case of one or the other in the current situation in Syria, where religious conflict has called to mind the religious conflicts of 16th and 17th century Europe. If Europe ended its religious wars with the Peace of Westphalia, the thinking goes, a …
Meta-review of “The Last Christian Peace”
I’m the kind of person who can’t help cringing equally when I read praise of my work and when I read criticism, so going through the reviews of this book has been a challenge. This is especially the case because I really poured myself into this book in a way that I didn’t with my …
Reviews are in
It appears that two years is the approximate gestation period for academic reviews: after seeing almost none in the first 24 months after my book was published, there has now been a flurry of them in the past 6 months. I intend to write a “meta-review” of them, summarizing what reviewers have identified as the …
Syria and Westphalia: The New Orthodoxy?
Here is yet another article linking the Syrian civil war with the Peace of Westphalia (and the Thirty Years’ War). I don’t have anything to add to what I’ve already said here and here. The comparison is picking up steam (this is the fourth article that I can recall) in spite of my best efforts …
Another Thirty Years’ War?
Someone recently brought to my attention a blog post by historian Martin van Creveld arguing that the present state of international relations is comparable to that of the early 17th century, and that we may be at the beginning of another Thirty Years’ War. This puts me once again in the unfortunate position of arguing …