scholarly journals Astrologers at War: Manuel Galhano Lourosa and the Political Restoration of Portugal, 1640–1668

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (02) ◽  
pp. 63-85
Author(s):  
Carlos Ziller Camenietzki ◽  
Luís Miguel Carolino

This paper analyses the involvement of the astrologer Manuel Galhano Lourosa in the restoration of political independence of Portugal from Spain between 1640 and 1668. Lourosa was the most successful astrologer and almanac maker in seventeenth-century Portugal. He published astrological almanacs for several decades, wrote an astrological and astronomical treatise on comets, and addressed astrological writings to Portuguese society urging support for the new political order that issued from the revolution of 1640. Some of these writings were consistent with the feelings of the urban professional and mercantile classes. We argue that, by publishing and using his social prestige in favour of the Restoration cause, Lourosa used the sphere of public opinion to act politically along with the interests of the urban middle class.

Author(s):  
Julian Swann

The absolute monarchy was a personal monarchy and during the reign of Louis XIV, the king established a tradition that the king should act as his ‘own first minister’, coordinating the work of his ministerial servants. In the course of the eighteenth century that tradition was undermined by a series of social, administrative, and cultural changes to such an extent that by the 1780s ministers were increasingly behaving as independent political figures, courting public opinion and claiming to act in the name of public welfare or even the nation. By examining these changes, this chapter argues that the political culture of the absolute monarchy was in constant transition and that the failure of Louis XVI, in particular, to manage its effects was one of the principal causes of his loss of authority in the period preceding the Revolution of 1789.


Author(s):  
Todd Butler

This chapter explains how the political changes of early Stuart England can be usefully examined from a cognitive perspective, with questions of authority and sovereignty being determined not just by what individuals or institutions do but also by how they are understood and expected to think, and in particular how they were expected to come to decisions. In doing so, it links early modern and contemporary understandings of state formation in seventeenth-century England to processes of decision-making and counsel, as well as the management of personal and public opinion, thereby explicating the mental mechanics of early modern governance. More than being simply a form of political thought or doctrine, intellection is presented as a shared attention to cognitive processes amidst historical moments in which we can see particular patterns of thinking—and attention to them as politics—begin to emerge.


2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Massimiliano Tomba

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to re-read Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire by highlighting the political meaning of a materialist historiography. In the first part, I consider Marx’s historiographical and political intention to represent the history of the aftermath of the revolution of ’48 as a farce in order to liquidate ‘any faith in the superstitious past’. In the second part I analyse the theatrical register chosen by Marx in order to represent the Second Empire as a society without a body, a phantasmagoria in which the Constitution, the National Assembly and law – in short, everything that the middle class had put up as essential principles of modern democracy – disappear. In the third part I argue that Marx does not elaborate a theory of revolution that is good for every occasion. What interests him is a historiography capable of grasping, in the various temporalities of the revolution, the chance for a true liberation.


Dialogue ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-338
Author(s):  
Norbert Lenoir

AbstractRousseau develops a genealogical reflection on political domination. The intelligibility of the genealogy does not rest on the psychological category of craving for power. That is why Rousseau differentiates between tyranny and despotism. Rousseau stresses this difference in two works: Discours sur l'origine de l'inégalité parmi les hommes and Rousseau juge de Jean-Jacques. Tyranny and despotism differ in that the latter produces an ideological speech. Political domination depends upon a double process. In the first process, ruling implies creating inequality in the political order, thus excluding people from political decisions. In order to mask this political inequality, the ideological speech produces two fictions: the fiction of the guaranty and the fiction of the community. In the second process, ruling implies generating public opinion which, in turn, adheres to this political order.


Aspasia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-30
Author(s):  
Dimitra Vassiliadou

Based on some forty duels that took place in Athens between 1870 and 1918, this article examines the different connotations middle-class dueling assumed in the political culture of the period. Drawing on newspaper articles, monographs, domestic codes of honor, legal texts, and published memoirs of duelists, it reveals the diversified character of male honor as value and emotion. Approaching dueling both as symbol and practice, the article argues that this ritualistic battle was imported to Greece against a background of fin de siècle political instability and passionate calls for territorial expansion and national integration. The duel gradually became a powerful way of influencing public opinion and the field of honor evolved into a theatrical stage for masculinity, emanating a distinct glamor: the glamor of a public figure who was prepared to lay down his life for his principles, his party, the proclamations he endorsed, and his “name.”


1987 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 509-525
Author(s):  
James Jay Carafano

A fresh interpretation of King William III's employment of the royal veto provides new insights into the political and constitutional issues of his reign. The veto, or the crown's negative voice as it was called by contemporaries, is a particularly fruitful subject for study in charting the course of politics in seventeenth century England. The employment of the veto offers an accurate barometer for measuring political and constitutional change. It addresses the key issue of sovereignty—who makes law? King or Parliament? It is surprising, therefore, that historians have neglected to examine the implications of William's employment of the veto. As a result, their conclusions about the veto are not supported by a full analysis of the available evidence. What they have overlooked is that a close examination of the bills the king rejected, and of contemporary views of the royal prerogative, demonstrates that underneath the turmoil of Williamite politics lay a stable foundation built on the settlement achieved at the Revolution of 1688/9.During his brief rule William III rejected a significant number of bills. Between 1692 and 1696 he vetoed five public bills: the Judges, Royal Mines, Triennial, Place, and MP Qualifications Bills. Previous Tudor and Stuart monarchs, with the exception of Queen Elizabeth I, only infrequently invoked the crown's right to refuse legislation. Queen Anne, who followed William to the throne, vetoed only one bill. She was the last monarch to employ this prerogative, although it remains theoretically a legitimate royal power.


1943 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 415-440
Author(s):  
N. S. Timasheff

Pre- revolutionary Russia was a rapidly advancing society in which a number of definite trends could be detected. Assuming that this development had not been interrupted by war and revolution, certain conjectures of the effects of these trends might be formulated.We may assume that without the revolution the political forces of Russia would have achieved the transformation of the “dual” or “constitutional” monarchy, which ruled Russia since 1906, into a parliamentary monarchy in which the Crown would have yielded actual power to representatives of public opinion. The franchise of the Douma would have been gradually democratized. The establishment of Z.emstvos, that is, provincial and district self-government, which, between 1866 and 1914, had contributed so much to Russia's advance in the fields of public education and public hygiene, would have been extended throughout the Empire, with perhaps the exception of some semi-colonial territories; these agencies would have received a significant re-en-forcement through the modernization of obsolete institutions of peasant self-government. The excellent judicial system which Russia had already enjoyed since 1866, curbed during the reactionary period before the Russo-Japanese war, but partly restored under the Douma, would have been expanded and improved.


2018 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-39
Author(s):  
Anton Bebler

The 1917 Russian October Revolution upset the political order in Europe, causing a significant geopolitical change on two continents and exerting various degrees of influence on the politics on six continents for several decades. However, the Revolution failed in its primary declared strategic objective – to destroy and abolish world capitalism. Moreover, it became discredited in its own country of origin and in most of Europe – much more than in many non-European countries, particularly Asia.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document