“Imperial Network – Contractor State Group" is a communal effort carried out by European and American researchers, with the aim of studying the relationship between warfare and political-construction in the early modern era. We focus on the interactions between state and society to understand how power was built up and maintained at both an imperial and global level.

The study timeframe is the long eighteenth century; the main subject studied is the mobilisation of warfare resources. Imperial Network – Contractor State Group aims to enhance historical understanding of how society and its public and private agents in each particular state and empire rose to the challenge of raising warfare resources, the main function of any state’s political action in that era. The main approach is a comparative study against the backdrop of ongoing globalisation.

Imperial Network – Contractor State Group aims to set up a permanent framework for reflection and historical comparison for a wide-ranging group of researchers. Special attention is paid to a comparison between the Spanish, British and French empires and the role played within the globalisation process.