The Peace of Westphalia: Origins, Character, Significance
Schedule
Sat, 06 Jun, 2026 at 11:00 am
UTC+01:00Location
16-18 Queen Square, BA1 2HN Bath, United Kingdom | Bath, EN
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The Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years War (1618-48), Europe’s most destructive conflict prior to the twentieth century world wars. The peace involved three interrelated treaties which, together, are widely accepted as foundations for a modern secular world order composed of sovereign states.
This interpretation is not only historically inaccurate, but it conjures up a model which is no longer fit for purpose in understanding today’s world. This talk will argue that the way to understand Westphalia is to look at the conflict it was intended to settle. Especially, to understand why that war took so long to resolve. In doing so, we gain new insight into the problems of resolving complex conflicts in an age of fragmented sovereignty – circumstances which are perhaps more pertinent to today’s problems than the textbook model of an international order defined by sovereign states.
Professor Peter H Wilson is the Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of All Souls College. His work has been translated into Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Macedonian, Polish, Spanish, and Swedish, and includes Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-speaking Peoples since 1500 (2022), The Holy Roman Empire: A Thousand Years of Europe’s History (2016), and Europe’s Tragedy: A History of the Thirty Years War (2009).
To learn more about the Renaissance and our exciting year long programme, don’t forget to follow our Renaissance: Journeys of Discovery webpage, where you can find out all about the Thirty Year war on our Renaissance timeline: https://www.brlsi.org/renaissance/
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