Debating 'the myth of 1648': state-formation, the interstate system and the rise of capitalism - a rejoinder

This rejoinder restates and develops the central theses of 'The Myth of 1648: Class, Geopolitics and the Making of Modern International Relations' in relation to a set of objections raised from the perspective of IR Historical Sociology by Hendrik Spruyt, of Political and Social Theory by Roland Axtmann and of Political Geography by John Agnew. Most centrally, it re-affirms the charge of a defective historicisation and theorisation of 'Westphalia' in the discipline of International Relations, while suggesting that a Marxist perspective that emphasises the spatio-temporally differentiated and geopolitically mediated development of Europe is capable of providing a new long-term interpretive framework for the complex co-development of capitalism, state building and the interstate system. It thereby pleads for a paradigm-shift in IR Theory and IR Historical Sociology.