This book deals with the crucial relationship between war and state formation in early modern Europe. Through his participation in the Nine Years War (1688-97) and the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14), Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, acquired a reputation for unrivaled "Machiavellian" diplomacy on the international stage. This book puts that diplomacy in context, and considers how the duke raised men and money (at home and abroad), the administrative changes forced by war, the resulting domestic pressures, and how these were dealt with.