Laurence Brockliss, Magdalen College, Oxford This textbook is witty, lively and provocative. Thanks to the breadth of the authors knowledge of the primary and secondary material, even scholars of the period will continually find new nuggets of information and fresh insights to set them thinking. Peter Burke FBA, Professor of Cultural History, University of Cambridge This is no ordinary textbook, but one that can be read and enjoyed again and again.

In its updated form it makes the best introduction to the period I know. Review Quotes Geoffrey Parkers book is characteristically lucid, lively and vigorous. The new edition has been revised throughout and includes an updated bibliography. He also illuminates the leading social, economic and intellectual developments of the period.

Professor Parker examines three crucial conflicts: the desperate struggle of the Habsburgs with France and the Dutch Republic the rivalry of Sweden, Denmark, Russia and Poland for control of the Baltic, and the confrontation between the Austrian Habsburgs and their subjects which escalated into the Thirty Years War. Instead revolution, civil war and complex international conflicts brought many states to the edge of collapse in the 1640s. The continent enjoyed scarcely a year of peace during this period.

From the Back Cover In the new edition of this classic book, Geoffrey Parker draws on material from all over Europe to provide an authoritative and exciting account of the eventful first half of the seventeenth century. It has become the definitive book on the subject.Book Synopsis In the new edition of this classic book, Geoffrey Parker draws on material from all over Europe to provide an authoritative and exciting account of the eventful first half of the seventeenth century. For range and depth of coverage there is no other work like it. It deals with all the major figures, including Wallerstein and Richelieu, Gustavus Adolphus and Tilly, the Winter King and the Habsburg emperors. It covers the horrors of the war and the contorted politics of the period. Written with great clarity and liveliness, the book brings alive the period in all its aspects. The updated bibliographical information provides an invaluable resource, synthesising the major work in the field, in all languages, up to 1996. This second edition has been thoroughly revised to include the very latest research. It has established itself as the classic text with reviewers, students and the general reader. Drawing on a huge body of source material from different languages and countries throughout Europe, it provided a clear and comprehensive narrative and analytical account of the subject. The first edition of The Thirty Years' War offered an unrivalled survey of a central period in European history.

The Thirty Years War by Geoffrey Parker