The general crisis in the history of the 17th century essay
Hobsbawm believed that if “capitalism is to rise, feudal or agrarian society must undergo a revolution” pg14. In his article The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century, he outlined the criteria necessary for capitalism to dominate. First, there must be sufficient accumulated capital to finance capitalist expansion. Secondly, there must be an increase in the Renaissance court. That was, in my opinion, the general crisis of the seventeenth century. It was not a crisis of the constitution, nor of the production system, but of the state, or rather, of the state's relationship to society. Different countries have found a way out of that crisis in different ways.