In a dense description, this book approaches the everyday life of an authority in the 18th century. Using the example of the chamber administration in Prussian Minden-Ravensberg, it deals with a problem of organisation that has always plagued the bureaucracy. Many things would be easier if work were not an imposition. So how is it that files are studied, colleagues put up with and hierarchies accepted as if they had always existed? This study, which is informed by systems theory and microhistory, shows with both source-related clarity and analytical precision that pre-modern administrations were able to gain a sense of self-evidence through guidelines, procedures, informal agreements and the use of written documents. An ingenious ruler's will was not necessary for the triumphant advance of the bureaucracy, as the older history of bureaucracy still assumed.
