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Dr Christopher Storrs

Contact Details

c.d.storrs@dundee.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0) 1382 3 85086

Profile

I joined the Programme (or Department of History as it then was) in 1994.  

My teaching focuses primarily on Europe in the early modern era (i.e. between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries).  I offer a range of related Honours modules: Imperial Spain  1476-1840 (Level 3); Enlightened Despotism in Europe 1763-1789 (Level 4 Option); and The French Revolution 1789-1799 (Level 4 Special Subject).  

My current research focuses on what has been called “Spain’s Dark Ages”, between 1665 and 1746, and – focusing on the example of the Savoyard state in Italy - on the process of state formation, and the nature of the state in the early modern era. Issues related to these topics are important to some of the Honours modules I teach.

Teaching interests

Undergraduate Modules:
Imperial Spain 1476-1840
Enlightened Despotism in Europe 1763-1789
The French Revolution 1789-1799

Research

Publications

Books

  • War, Diplomacy and the Rise of Savoy 1690-1720 (Cambridge, 1999).
  • The Resilience of the Spanish Monarchy 1665-1700 (Oxford, 2006) This book is currently being translated into Spanish for publication in Spain late in 2011
  • The Fiscal-Military State in the Eighteenth Century: Essays for P.G.M. Dickson (Aldershot, 2009), edited by me, I also contributed the ‘Introduction: the fiscal-military state in the ‘long’ eighteenth century’’ (pp. 1-22), and ‘The Savoyard fiscal-military state in the ‘long’ eighteenth century’ (pp. 201-35)

Articles/chapters

  • 'Thomas Coxe and the Lindau Project', in A. de Lange, ed., Dall'Europa alle Valli Valdesi. Atti del Convegno 2Il Glorioso Rimpatrio 1689-1989, (Torino, 1990), pp. 199-214
  • 'Machiavelli Dethroned: Victor Amadeus II and the making of the Anglo-Savoyard alliance of 1690', European History Quarterly, Vol. 22, (1992), 3, pp. 347-82
  • with HM Scott, 'Introduction: The Consolidation of Noble Power in Europe c. 1600-1800'. in H.M. Scott, ed., The European Nobilities in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, 2 vols., (London, 1995), I, pp. 1-52 (2nd edition published, 2006)
  • with H.M. Scott (50% contribution), 'The Military Revolution and the European Nobility c. 1600-1800', War in History, Vol. 3, (1996), pp. 1-41
  • ‘The Army of Lombardy and the Resilience of Spanish power in Italy 1665-1700. Part One’, War in History, Vol. 4/4, (1997), pp. 371-97
  • ‘The Army of Lombardy and the Resilience of Spanish power in Italy 1665-1700. Part Two’, War in History, Vol. 5/1, (1998), pp. 1-22
  • ‘Disaster at Darien (1698-1700)? The Persistence of Spanish Imperial Power on the Eve of the Demise of the Spanish Habsburgs’, European History Quarterly, Vol. 29/1 (1999), p. 5-38. This article was republished in translation in the Spanish Revista di Storia Naval Ano XVIII, Num. 68 (2000), pp. 7-34.
  • ‘Sardinian diplomacy in the Eighteenth Century (1684-1798)', in D. Frigo, ed., Politics and Diplomacy in Early Modern Italy. The Structure of Diplomatic Practice, 1450-1800 (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 210-253
  • ‘Germany’s Indies? The Spanish Monarchy and Germany in the Reign of the Last Spanish Habsburg, Charles II’, in C. Kent, T.K. Wolber and C.M.K. Hewitt, eds., The Lion and the Eagle. Interdisciplinary Essays on German-Spanish Relations over the Centuries (New York and London, 2000),pp. 108-129.
  • ‘Le Politiche Statali: Lo Stato Sabaudo, Pinerolo e la Chiesa 1690-1748’, in A. Bernardi, et. al., eds., Il Settecento Religioso nel Pinerolese, (Pinerolo, 2001), pp. 23-47.
  • ‘La pervivencia de la monarquía española bajo el reinado de Carlos II (1665-1700)’, Manuscrits, Vol. 21 (2003), pp. 39-61
  • ‘Ormea as Foreign Minister 1732-45: the Savoyard State between England and Spain’, in A. Merlotti, ed., Nobilta e Stato in Piemonte. I Ferrero d’Ormea (Turin, 2003), pp. 231-48
  • ‘Der politische Kontext der Vertreibung der franzosischen Protestanten aus dem Piemont (1698)’, in A. de Lange and G. Schwinge, eds., Pieter Valckenier und das Schicksal der Waldenser um 1700 (Heidelberg-Basel, 2004), pp. 13-36
  • ‘Health, Sickness and Medical Services in Spain’s Armed Forces 1665-1700’, Medical History, Vol. 50, (2006), pp. 325-50
  • ‘Foreign Penetration of the Spanish Empire 1660-1714: Sweden, Scotland and England’, in A. I. Macinnes and A.H. Williamson, eds., Shaping the Stuart World, 1603-1714. The Atlantic Connection (Leiden, 2006), pp. 337-65
  • ‘The (Spanish) Armies of Carlos II (1665-1700)’, in E. Garcia Hernan and D. Maffi, eds., Guerra y Sociedad en la Monarquía Hispánica Política, Estrategia y Cultura en la Europa Moderna (1500-1700), 2 vols. (Madrid, 2006), I, pp. 485-500.
  • ‘Imperial Authority and the Levy of Contributions in “Reichsitalien” in the Nine Years War (1690-1696)’, in M. Schnettger and M. Verga, eds., L’Impero e l’Italia nella Prima Eta Moderna/Das Reich und Italien in der Fruhen Neuzeit (Bologna and Berlin, 2006), pp. 241-73
  • ‘Intelligence and the Formulation of Spanish Policy and Strategy (1665-1700)’, Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 21, (2006), pp. 493-519
  •  ‘Provincial Governors and the Absolute State: Piedmont, 1713-48’, European History Quarterly Vol. 37/1, (2007), pp. 35-60
  • ‘Giustizia militare, militari e non militari nell’Europa della prima eta moderna’, in C. Donati and B.R. Kroener, eds., Militari e societa civile nell’Europa dell’eta moderna (secoli XVI-XVIII’, (Bologna, 2007), pp. 573-609 
  • ‘Savoyard Diplomacy: A Case of Exceptionalism?’,  in P. Bianchi, ed., Il Piemonte Come Eccezione? (Turin, 2008), pp. 95-111     
  • ‘The Union of 1707 and the War of the Spanish Succession’, special (monograph) issue of Scottish Historical Review, LXXXVII (2008), pp. 31-44
  •  ‘Italians in Military Service outside Italy in Early Modern Europe: Britain’, in  P. Bianchi, D. Maffi and E. Stumpo, eds., Italiani al servizio straniero in eta moderna, Guerra e pace in eta moderna. Annali si storia moderna, 1 (2008), pp. 41-53
  • ‘Inglaterra y la Guerra de Sucesion Espanola’, in F. Garcia Gonzalez, ed., La Guerra de Sucesion en Espana y la Batalla de Almansa (Madrid, 2009), pp. 109-31.
  • ‘The Role of Religion in Spanish Foreign Policy in the Reign of Carlos II (1665-1700)’, in D. Onnekink, ed., War and Religion after Westphalia  1648-1713 (Aldershot, 2009), pp. 25-46
  • ‘The Savoyard state: another Enlightened Despotism?’, in G. Paquette, ed., Enlightened Reform in Southern Europe and its Atlantic Colonies, c. 1750-1830 (Aldershot, 2009), pp. 203-228
  • ‘British Diplomacy in Switzerland (1689-1789) and Eighteenth Century Diplomatic Culture’, in E. Pibiri and G. Poisson, eds., Le diplomate en question, (Lausanne, 2010), pp. 181-215
  •  ‘The Fallen Politician's Way Back In: Melchor de Macanaz as Spy and Secret Negotiator’, in D. Szechi, ed., The Dangerous Trade. Spies, Spymasters and the Making of Europe (Dundee, 2010), pp.

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Research Statement

My main interest is in state formation, the rise and fall of empires, and international relations (including war) in early modern Europe. The subject of my first book was the rise of a small Italian state during a period of major warfare in Europe, between 1690 and 1720. My second book dealt with the survival of the Spanish empire at a time when Spain is generally thought of as being in terminal decline. Currently I am continuing to research the Hispanic world. I am researching the attempt of the first Bourbon king of Spain, Philip V, to reconstruct a Spanish Mediterranean in the generation after the War of the Spanish Succession. I am also interested in the way the process of state formation in eighteenth-century Spain was experienced by those whom the state was imposing upon: subjects being expected to pay additional taxes and to serve in royal armies and navies. I am further engaged in a general history of eighteenth-century Italy. Other, more general research interests include crime and punishment and military justice in the ever-larger standing armies of early modern Europe, and espionage and its impact upon policy in the wars of the later seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.    

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Suggested areas for postgraduate supervision

  • Early Modern Spain
  • Early Modern Italy, especially Spanish Italy and the Duchy of Savoy
  • State Formation in Europe
  • Identity in Europe
  • The European Nobility/-ies
  • War, Diplomacy and International Relations in Europe
  • Crime, Punishment and Military Justice in Europe
  • Espionage and Intelligence in Europe
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Research Problems

Spain's role is one the great gaps in our knowledge - and more important our understanding - of international relations in the second half of the seventeenth century and to a lesser degree that of the early eighteenth century. I would welcome research students wishing to work with me on the many historical problems associated with this issue, including:.

  • Has the triumph of the modern nation state produced a history largely unsympathetic to the supranational Spanish Habsburg “Monarchy” (empire)?
  • Has the dismantling of the Francoist state in Spain since 1975 produced too local a history in Spain, one disinclined to the importance of a centralised, Castilian-dominated state or empire?
  • Are historians wrong to talk of Spain as in decline in the later seventeenth century?
  • What light does Spain’s experience in the second half of the seventeenth century and to a lesser degree that of the early eighteenth century throw on theories of the rise and fall of empires?
  • How was the process of state formation experienced by the state’s subjects in the early modern period?
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Thinking about some of my other research interests

  • What do courts-martial reveal about the development of armies, of states and what light do they throw on patterns of crime and punishment more generally in early modern Europe?
  • How important was espionage (intelligence) in the formulation and execution of policy and strategy in the early modern era?
  • How far had the processes of state formation in the various states of eighteenth century Italy obstructed the development of a national Italian identity? 
  • To what extent did a public sphere emerge in Italy – or its component states – in the eighteenth century?
  • How far were old and new chivalric orders  used by sovereigns as an element of state building in the early modern era?
  • What was the role and power of noblewomen in early modern Europe?
  • A study of the diplomatic corps in various capitals as an example of a typical, privileged ancien regime corporation in Europe before 1789  
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