ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The field of early modern propaganda has been particularly enriched, since Renaissance image-making was always a multi-media affair. The linguistic turn has provided a set of ideas that are highly useful when analysing campaigns of political propaganda. As non-French propagandists manufactured their representations of French monarchy, they had to contend with the powerful influence of French image-making. In the later seventeenth century, France was the cultural leader of Europe, and had the most extensive resources for extending her influence beyond her borders. David Hayton suggests the picture of the Sun King in early Williamite Ireland was heavily entangled with attempts to condemn Irish Catholic Jacobites; after 1710 the displaced Whigs of England ramped up anti-Ludovician rhetoric as part of their campaign against the peace-seeking Tory government. Focussing on the domestic context of Louis image in other countries allows one last qualification of simple 'denigration'.
