The treaty signed in that German province in 1648 broke the Holy Roman Empire which was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, but the kind of fuzzy political entity that Mr Zielonka likes.

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There's no more Roman or Holy Roman Empire.

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The Thurn und Taxis family eventually won the lucrative position of postmasters-general for the Holy Roman Empire.

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Bonaparte destroyed the Holy Roman Empire, but that made possible the unification of Germany and the deadly mutation of Prussian nationalism.

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In the power vacuum that accompanied the decline of the Holy Roman Empire, a number of large and efficient city-states evolved, all having an unusually potent sense of a separate identity.

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The Roman Empire eventually crumbled, but some of its banking institutions lived on in the form of the papal bankers that emerged in the Holy Roman Empire, and with the Knights Of The Temple during the Crusades.

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