This volume of nineteen essays follows a 2006 conference held to mark the two-hundredth anniversary of the end of the Holy Roman Empire. Essays by a number of authors reflect very helpfully on recent German debates about the empire. This volume is divided into three sections: on constitutional, religious and social history. Surprisingly limited attention is paid to the role of emperors or to the imperial court. The volume also gives little consideration to the empire's relations with its neighbours, and there is insufficient space dedicated to analysis of non-German speaking parts of the empire.

Turning first to essays about religious life, the complex legacy of the Reformation and the impact of the 1555 Augsburg settlement and 1648 Peace of Westphalia are considered in a number of essays. These constitutional arrangements both reflected and shaped the emergence of three distinct confessional cultures within the empire. Scott Dixon reflects on the reception of evangelical ideas in imperial free cities, and considers how the path of religious reform was affected by imperial politics and the character of urban communities. Marc Forster reflects on the relationship between Catholicism and the countryside. He argues that urban Catholic culture lost its dominance after 1650 in the context of the vitality of rural Baroque Catholicism. While Forster acknowledges the role of the state and church institutions in shaping rural Catholicism he also emphasises the importance of popular initiative in developing forms of piety. Trevor Johnson, who very sadly died in 2007, provides an expert account of the ‘reCatholicisation’ of the Upper Palatinate. He explains how the Upper Palatinate was formally transferred by the emperor in 1628 to the control of the Bavarian Wittelsbachs. The new ruler, Maximilian, lost little time in invoking his right under the 1555 Augsburg settlement to order the entire population to convert to Catholicism within six months or to emigrate. Perhaps half the nobility and many people from Amberg and other towns quickly left. However, a 1660 decree ordering the expulsion of remaining non-Catholics suggests that reCatholicisation could not be achieved by state coercion alone. Johnson explains the strategies of Catholic clergy to foster a new religious culture and the role of Jesuits in educating the elite. Meanwhile local saints' cults and sites of pilgrimage were revived, ‘redrawing the map of the Upper Palatinate into a Counter Reformation sacred space’ (pp. 220–1).

One of the greatest challenges to the emerging imperial constitution of the sixteenth century was certainly dealing with the problems caused by religious division. Peter Wilson discusses how the Thirty Years War marked a constitutional crisis over the extent of religious rights and limits of imperial authority. Several contributors point out that 1648 did not mark any terminal decline for the empire but rather provided the platform for imperial recovery under Leopold. The empire faced challenges of governance but, as Georg Schmidt emphasises, there are many similarities between developments in the empire and other early modern states. Several contributors assess the vitality of key political institutions. Leopold Auer explains the role played by the Imperial Aulic Council in providing expert opinion on legal cases of political significance, as well as attempting to resolve conflicts between princes and their estates or subjects. Karl Härter reviews the development of the permanent imperial diet that provided an arena for negotiation and reconciliation between the members of its colleges and emperors. The shared interests of key elite groups were also important to the empire's resilience. Hillay Zmora explains the developing role of the imperial knights in Franconia and their direct feudal relationship with emperors. Allegiance to the Habsburg family was also vital to the empire's stability, and Dominic Phelps writes very persuasively about how loyalty and self-interest overlapped to ensure that the Wettins of Saxony were consistent supporters of Habsburg imperial candidates.

Susan Karant-Nunn's essay sets out the potential benefits of developing a comprehensive social history of the empire. Essays in this section explain the role of history, ritual and communication in the survival of the empire. Markus Völkel argues that a sense of shared history was an important element in how people related themselves and their communities to the empire. Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger analyses rituals around the investiture of princes that reflected the hierarchical structure of the empire's feudal order. Although it had long been accepted that princes held their territories by hereditary right, until a territorial prince was properly invested by the emperor his authority lacked legitimacy. However, by the mid-eighteenth century the requirement for territorial rulers or their envoys to kneel before the emperor led to problems, particularly among those princes who were also monarchs outside the empire. In 1788 Joseph ii dropped all attempts to perform investitures and the ‘investiture ritual changed from a staging of imperial power to a site of imperial impotence’ (p. 368). Wolfgang Behringer's essay casts light on many of this volume's key themes about the empire's vitality and fragility. He examines the imperial postal network run by the Taxis family of Brussels. Inn-keepers were recruited along postal routes and given the right to display the logo of an eagle and post horn. The post ran weekly from 1534 between Antwerp and Augsburg, and from 1536 between Augsburg and Venice. While the postal service held disparate parts of the empire together by an effective system of communications, there were Protestant complaints that the postal network was biased towards the Catholic south and west. After 1648 larger Protestant territories created postal networks of their own, fragmenting the imperial ‘communications universe’. However, the reputation of the imperial post system revived after a mail coach system was introduced in 1705. Staffed by dedicated officials, the Taxis of Brussels maintained the postal network across the empire until the end came in August 1806.