The State as Master: Gender, State Formation and Commercialisation in Urban Sweden, 1650–1780 (Gender in History) - Hardcover

Agren, Maria

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1526100649 ISBN 13: 9781526100641

Publisher: Manchester University Press, 2017

Synopsis

We tend to think of state service as the typical male form of work. However, this notion does not do justice to the early history of states and their servants, and it obscures the role of women and gender entirely. Teasing out these entanglements, The state as master shows how early modern state formation was subsidized by ordinary people's work and how, at the same time, the changing relationship between state authorities and families shaped the understanding of work and gender. This book is both a fascinating story of the hardships of customs official families in small Swedish towns and an innovative analysis of state formation and its short- and long-term effects.

About this title

About the Author

Maria Ågren is Professor of History at Uppsala University, Sweden -- .

From the Back Cover

Combining a central topic in political history with a gender perspective, The state as master takes a fresh look at how state formation intersected with the everyday lives of women and men.

State service offered new opportunities to early modern households, but the states were also dependent on the contributions made by households. In the longer-term this strong but ambivalent interdependence was formative for both state-building and for how work was gendered. Well-known for its efficient fiscal-military state and its comprehensive modern welfare state, Sweden provides an excellent case for discussing how state service and households have been entangled over time.

The state as master argues that in order to integrate gender in political history, we need to think of the fiscal-military state as strong (Leviathan) yet at the same time weak. It also points to the common roots of women's and men's service work and charts the process by which service for the state was gendered as exclusively male. Drawing on a wide variety of historical sources, the working lives of lower customs officials and their families in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Swedish towns are analysed. These people carried out crucial - yet often detested - tasks for their master, the state, and their everyday problems and conflicts make them uniquely visible in the sources. The book shows how, slowly, an understanding of civil and public service as paid and professional male activities was shaped, while women's work for others became perceived as an unqualified form of 'help'.

The state as master will be essential reading for academics and postgraduates with an interest in early modern history.

Edition details

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1526100649
• ISBN 13: 9781526100641
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 184