Empire, War And Faith In Early Modern Europe

Description

In this brilliant and provocative study, renowned historian Geoffrey Parker traces the rise and fall of global empires, the impact of mass warfare and limits to religious growth in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. He ranges from the dramatic rise and fall of Philip II's Spanish superpower to William of Orange's invasion of England; from Elizabethan espionage and treason to the spread of Protestantism; from the 'etiquette of atrocity' in early modern Europe. All reveal what the short-lived triumphs and devastating failures of this period can tell us about today's world.

Paperback (B Format)

Author description

Geoffrey Parker is Andreas Dorpalen Professor of History at The Ohio State University, and has previously held chairs at Yale, Princeton and St Andrews. His previous books include The Thirty Years' War, The Spanish Armada (with Colin Martin), The Military Revolution, and The Grand Strategy of Philip II. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, and a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Alfonso the Wise. He is now working on a book about the World Crisis in the seventeenth century.

Table of contents

Part I Philip II - the world is not enough: David or Goliath? - Philip II and his world in the 1580s; of providence and Protestant winds - the Spanish Armada of 1588 and the Dutch Armada of 1688; treason and plot in Elizabethan diplomacy - the "fame of Sir Edward Stafford" reconsidered; Philip II, maps and power. Part II The century of the soldier: the Treaty of Lyon (1601) and the Spanish road; the etiquette of atrocity - the laws of war in early modern Europe; the "military revolution" in 17th-century Ireland; the artillery fortress as an engine of European overseas expansion, 1480-1750. Part III Sin, salvation and success denied: success and failure during the first century of the reformation; the "Kirk by Law Established" and the "Taming of Scotland" - St Andrews, 1559-1600. Appendix: the disciplinary work of the St Andrews Kirk-session, 1573-1600.