Pietism and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Prussia

How did as small and backward a state as Prussia transform itself to compete successfully in war against states with far greater human and financial resources? Richard Gawthrop finds the answer to this perennial question in the creation of a unique political culture, in which service to the Prussian state took precedence over all other relationships and commitments. The campaign to inculcate the new ideology of disciplined energetic obedience to the state authority derived its moral vision and institutional forms from Lutheran Pietism, a German version of ascetic Protestantism strongly influenced by English Puritanism. This work describes systematically how the collaboration between Pietism and the Prussian state not only led to an increase in the latter's power but also laid the cultural basis for the subsequent political modernization of Germany. This book sees the rise of Prussia to great-power status in the first half of the eighteenth century as resulting from a revolutionary change in the Prussian political culture. The campaign to inculcate the new ideology of disciplined energetic obedience to the state authority derived in essence from Lutheran Pietism, a German version of ascetic Protestantism.This work is the first to describe systematically how the collaboration between Pietism and the Prussian state not only led to an increase in the latter's power but also laid the cultural basis for the subsequent political modernisation of Germany. This work describes the relationship between Pietism and the rise of the Prussian state Richard L. Gawthrop. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 285-300) And Index. The story of a revolution always begins with its ancien regime.