CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Szabó, Barnabás |
|---|---|
| Title | Commerce and Constitution in Early Modern Britain and Spain: Alternatives from Scotland and Catalonia (1680-1720) |
| Summary | The dissertation offers a comparative analysis of early modern Scotland and Catalonia in the context of the transformation of the British and the Hispanic composite monarchies at the end of the seventeenth, beginning of the eighteenth century. It proposes that the unions established in 1707 and subsequently, incorporating Scotland into a British, and Catalonia and the Crown of Aragon into a Spanish polity, were not foregone conclusions until the moment of their inception – and to an extent even beyond. Credible alternatives to incorporating union were not only discussed but put to the test in both contexts; their ultimate failure being contingent on particular historical constellations rather than a lack of ideas and efforts. The dissertation intends to contribute to the intellectual history of the creation of the British and the Spanish union states, discussing these transformations as episodes in the geopolitical history of Europe, while enabling us to reconsider the related constitutional, commercial, and dynastic stakes in their own historical environment, and to look at the ways in which certain concepts were formulated in the past to possibly inform political alternatives in the present times. |
| Supervisor | Kontler, László |
| Department | History PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/szabo_barnabas.pdf |
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