Gerrit Walther describes the political changes which occurred within the European states and within parts of the non-European world during the "long" 18th century including the period from 1648 to 1789. The epoch saw the rise of the absolutist state which constantly expanded its power. But it was also marked by a never-ending number of wars: from the Wars of the Turks, the War of the Spanish Succession, the Nordic War, the Silesian Wars to the Seven Years' War, the first world war in history. The interstate conflicts were the great driving force for the changes of this epoch. They generated those new forms of thinking, speaking and values which led to the most important Western cultural movement defined as "Enlightenment". State competition and reason are the defining concepts of this epoch, which affected not only individual countries but Europe as a whole.