Seventeenth-Century Europe State, Conflict and Social Order in Europe, 1598–1700 /

• Main Author: Munck, Thomas (Author)
• Corporate Author: SpringerLink (Online service)
• Format: Electronic eBook
• Language: English
• Published: London : Macmillan Education UK : Imprint: Palgrave, 2005.
• Edition: Second Edition.
• Series: Palgrave History of Europe
• Subjects: History.; Europe > History.; European History.

 This thematically organised text provides a compelling introduction and guide to the key problems and issues of this highly controversial century. Offering a genuinely comparative history, Thomas Munck adeptly balances Eastern and Southern Europe, Scandinavia, and the Ottoman Empire against the better-known history of France, the British Isles and Spain. Seventeenth-Century Europe - gives full prominence to the political context of the period, arguing that the Thirty Years War is vital to understanding the social and political developments of the early modern period - provides detailed coverage of the debates surrounding the 'general crisis', absolutism and the growth of the state, and the implications these had for townspeople, the peasantry and the poor - examines changes in economic orientation within Europe, as well as continuity and change in mental and cultural traditions at different social levels. Now fully revised, this second edition of a well-established and approachable synthesis features important new material on the Ottomans, Christian-Moslem contacts and on the role of women. The text has also been thoroughly updated to take account of recent research. 

 Chronology of Main Events 1598-1700 -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Maps -- The Thirty Years War in the German Lands -- Government in Wartime Europe -- The Framework of Life -- Enterprise and Profit -- The Structure of Society: Nobility, Office-Holders and the Rich -- The Structure of Society: Urban Life -- Provincial Revolts, Civil Wars and Crises in Mid-century Europe -- The Structure of Society: Peasant and Seigneur -- Beliefs, Mentalités, Knowledge and the Printed Text -- The Arts, the Value of Creativity and the Cost of Appearances -- Absolute Monarchy and the Return of Order After 1660 -- Power and State-Sponsored Violence in the Later Seventeenth Century -- Conclusions -- Notes -- Further Reading -- Index.