How three old-fashioned political organizations, the Holy Roman Empire, the Republic of Poland, and the Ottoman empire, were pushed aside by newer, stronger powers.
The expansion and westernization of Russia.
The declining freedoms of peasants east of the Elbe in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.
The power of landlords in eastern Europe, and their control of the agricultural estate, the main social unit of the region.
The common factors of weakness among the aging empires, including a lack of central authority, inefficient administration and government, and the diversity of the peoples within those empires.
The renewed power of the Habsburgs, who recovered from the humiliation of the settlement dictated by the Peace of Westphalia and created an international empire.
The Swedish transition from a great power to a small one.
The ascendancy of the Hohenzollerns, and their triumph over the Holy Roman Emperor in acquiring the title of king of Prussia.
Prussian militarism and its impact on Prussian society.
How the three new powers in eastern Europe borrowed ideas and administrative systems from western Europe while maintaining their distinctive political, social, and cultural characteristics.
The process of westernizing Russia undertaken by Peter the Great, which provoked a social revolution.
