{"product_id":"9780521573900","title":"Charles XI and Swedish Absolutism, 1660–1697","description":"The reading public outside Sweden knows little of that country's history, beyond the dramatic and short-lived era in the seventeenth century when Sweden under Gustavus Adolphus became a major European power by her intervention in the Thirty Years War. In the last decades of the seventeenth century another Swedish king, Charles XI, launched a less dramatic but remarkable bid to stabilize and secure Sweden's position as a major power in northern Europe and as master of the Baltic Sea. This project, which is almost unknown to students of history outside Sweden, involved a comprehensive overhaul of the government and institutions of the kingdom, on the basis of establishing Sweden as a model of absolute monarchy. This 1998 book gives an account of what was achieved under the absolutist direction of a distinctly unglamorous, but pious and conscientious ruler.","brand":"A. F. Upton","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45780221460798,"sku":"9780521573900","price":5379.12,"currency_code":"ZAR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4357\/7662\/products\/9780521573900_95abe759-54be-42f7-a8a0-51057d00f1eb.jpg?v=1707291672","url":"https:\/\/exclusivebooks.co.za\/products\/9780521573900","provider":"Exclusive Books Online","version":"1.0","type":"link"}