Confederation. Turning Swiss meant a commitment to fight the Empire and enter into an uncertain kind of politics, one that often encouraged the lower classes in their districts to revolt. Cities that did not have strong ties to the Swiss would have needed to sever all their personal connections to the Empire in exchange for unclear advantage. Importantly, they would be physically separated from the Swiss if the regions around them did not join as well. Swissification came much more easily to smaller cities with good social and economic relations with their hinterlands. Many of these could be found in the poorer mountain regions of the Alps and the Jura. The Revolution of 1525 The German Peasants War From a New Perspective Peter Blickle Johns Hopkins University Press 1981. 272 pp., $11.95 (Paperback) In 1524, middle Europe's peasants revolted in an upheaval paralleled by a broad Christian reformation, colonial and commercial expansion, the emergence of early modem nations, and the aggressive expansion and oppressive solidification of feudalism. Blickle, in the best book of its kind available in English, analyzes not just the causes and course of the rebellions. He examines in detail the peasant demands, Below and bottom opposite page, The Book of Trades (Stiindebuch) lost Amman and Hans Sachs, 1568. Winter/Spring 1991 RAIN Page 31 their revolutionary governments, and their .utopian ideals. For those who today look forward to the break-up of the modem nation-state, there are great lessons here. These peasants knew better than we the meaning of local independence. The Italian City-Republics Daniel Waley World University Library (McGraw-Hill) 1969. 254 pp. (Out of Print) A city that is also a nation does not look much like a modern city, especially in the degree to which the city occupies its people's attention. Imagine a city where the citizens pay only local taxes, where nationalism and a feeling of community are nearly the same thing. For many centuries Italian political units were quite small, but from the 11th to the 14th centuries they were republics, where citizens voted on the state of the commune. Waley's book, which needs to be reprinted, is an engrossing, accessible account of this time before tyranny retook the Italian city-states. If cities were to become independent of nations today, they might very well face many of the same problems that commerce created in Italy so many years ago. lnnerschweiz und Friihe Eidgenossenschaft February, 1991 Walter-Verlag, Olten, Switzerland From the series: Historischer Verein der fiinf Orte In this collection is Peter Blickle's new essay on the influences of the years 1200-1400 on the Swiss constitution: "Friede und Verfassung". Power and Imagination City-States in Renaissance Italy Lauro Martines Johns Hopkins University Press 1988. 400 pp., $13.95 (paperback) From the start of the commercial boom in the 11th century, to the ends of the cultural renaissance in the 17th, Martines examines the many expressions of power in the great Italian city-states, He unflinchingly describes the transformation of popular city republics into corrupt, dissolute, powerful oligarchies. The fruits of the renaissance, so long studied out of context, emerged with an approving and dominating elite, to whose taste, morality and politics the art was targeted. The economic and social conditions of the times produced propaganda for the masses and symbols, ideals and rose-tinted glasses for the patricians. It is telling, perhaps, that this ostentation is our most popular inheritance from the long history of the Italian city-state.
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