Forging Faithful Subjects

Phillip D. Fox is professor of history at Wayne State College in Nebraska.

"Conventional wisdom holds that the accession of the Bourbons to the Spanish throne portended a centralized governing apparatus modeled on French absolutism. Extant interpretations also tell us that this project failed to become a modern fiscal-military state because of institutional weakness and elite resistance. In this bold book, Phillip D. Fox invites us to leave this teleology behind, arguing that in a context of jurisdictional fragmentation, unilateral revenue extraction threatened to alienate subjects and incite revolt. Spain's first Bourbon king, Philip V, solved the vexing problem of financing war by way of a prudent middle ground: he eliminated the historical constitutions of rebel territories yet preserved the negotiated politics of the Spanish Habsburgs. In deftly telling this story, Fox reveals the Spanish Bourbon state as a successful effort to balance centralization with the preservation of a society based on privilege and patronage, thus avoiding the fragilities of the absolutist model. Undoubtedly, this is a necessary read for scholars of the modern state."--Fidel J. Tavarez, author of Assembling an Imperial Machine: Spanish Commercial Reform in the Age of Enlightenment "Phillip D. Fox's Forging Faithful Subjects is a significant, original contribution to the historiography of early modern Spain. Challenging the notion of a decisive break between the Habsburg and Bourbon dynasties, Fox sheds new light on the long reign of Philip V, including his Nueva Planta decrees. A well-researched and tidily argued study, Fox's book enables readers to understand the complexities and vicissitudes of kingship in eighteenth-century Spain."--Gabriel Paquette, author of The European Seaborne Empires: From the Thirty Years' War to the Age of Revolutions