Diplomacy as Experience of the Other

This book, initially published in French in 2002, has served as a foundational reference for the emerging field of “New Diplomatic History.” Adopting a microhistorical approach, Christian Windler proposed a novel paradigm for the cultural and social history of diplomacy. His work combines a focus on the extraordinarily well-documented life of a French consul with an examination of cultural representations, interaction rituals, and gift-giving practices in a cultural contact zone from 1700 to 1840. The author demonstrates how the plural diplomatic order of the early modern Mediterranean region was challenged by the Atlantic revolutions, which resulted in the emergence of new forms of coexistence marked by the growing predominance of European powers.