Reddit reviews The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy
We found 17 Reddit comments about The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Belknap Press
The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy
It's extremely thorough, which is both good and bad, because that war contained so many competing interests and an infinite number of notable generals and politicians that it can be overwhelming to remember who is doing what to whom and who wants what. But that said, I think that's really just the nature of the war itself. I definitely recommend it, if you have the patience to finish it. I bought the book knowing relatively little about the 30 years war and now know a lot more about it, and it's pretty well-written as well. Definitely recommend it.
The thirty years war was a crazy, huge, complicated thing and that book gives an overview of all of it. All that information can be daunting, but it's a great book. It's also a great time capsule of how government worked in that time frame, as well as society in general. And it helps explain why the Netherlands exists, too.
Generally the "merchant" classes were found in what can be called "free cities" and there was quite a bit of red tape, mostly involving what would amount to grants of business rights from whoever the overlord was (in many cases the Churches, in others Nobles.) There were some pretty interesting showdowns as these urban areas developed between the Nobles that wanted to control them (and tax the wealth that was developing in them) and the residents, who were essentially fighting for freedom of trade. They were further regulated by what would have been the equivalent of guilds, etc.
Depending on the relations between these free(er) cities and surrounding areas, trade was either good, or could be terrible.
The beginning chapters of The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy, by Peter H. Wilson does a really good job of going through the various social constructs for the geographic regions involved in the war. I found fascinating the legal constructs of the HRE.
I'm still trying to map out exactly what was going on in the HRE, though. I got busy with work and haven't been able to put the time in on reading this in about 6 months.
Link for the book, well worth buying, since you will likely read it about 10 thousand times trying to figure out what exactly was going on.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Thirty-Years-War-Europes/dp/0674062310
A boy who gets a C minus in Appreciation of History can't be all bad.
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While I agree that stopping the "Muslim invasion" is ridiculous (unless your name is Charles Martel), almost all of the points this meme made are either untrue or deliberately obfuscating what really happened. Personally, I hate /pol/ and want desperately for Muslim refugees to find a safe home in Europe or America, but bad history is bad history, so here goes:
Yeah, this one is accurate.
There was no concept of "Europe" at this time. Furthermore, there were no concepts of national identity. People may have been united in a common language but traveling a mere 100 miles might take you to a place where you struggle to understand the same language that you speak!
I assume this is referring to the Fourth Crusade? Byzantium was not "begging" for help. The reasons why Enrico Dandolo and the others were led to Constantinople was partly due to bad intel (a pretender to the throne convinced them that he was the rightful ruler, and if they overthrew the Emperor, he would submit to the Pope as the premier religious authority) The crusaders, while waiting in mainland Venetian territory, suffered a horrible plague. Drained of money and time, the crusaders needed to first go to the ERE in order to make connections, loot, or otherwise stock up for their planned conquest of Alexandria (Jerusalem was a wholly unrealistic goal). Oh, and the Pope excommunicated all of the crusaders for attacking Constantinople and tried desperately to have them stopped.
To be honest, it's been a while, but I'm citing Rodger Crowley here. I'd love for someone more knowledgeable to chime in.
This one absolutely cracks me up by how wrong it is. The real people who stopped the "Muslim" (in reality, a very specific Muslim dynasty, the Umayyads) advance were the Franks, more specifically, Charles Martel, who stopped the Umayyad incursion into (what is now) France in 732. His grandson is more famous though, being Charlemagne. More on that later. Anyways, the sacking of Baghdad happened in 1258. That's right, over 500 years after the Battle of Tours. Not sure how the sacking of Baghdad in 1258 had any impact on the Umayyad problems in Southern France. As for Baghdad itself, the era of Muslim expansionism had long come to an end at that point.
I'm not going to dispute this. However, you have to recognize that at the time, "oppression" meant many different things. It definitely did not mean what it does now. Not exactly uniquely Christian to do such a thing.
Wikipedia's articles on the TYW are awful. They're written from an English perspective that glorifies the idea of a Protestant alliance vs. the Catholic Habsburg powers. This is simply not true. For one thing, the primary "Protestant" power was France, aka the biggest Catholic nation in Western Europe. Secondly, faith merely acted as a component to the more serious dynastic and territorial ambitions of various groups, most notably the Swedish, the Hessians, and the Palatinate. The war was triggered by the Bohemian Revolt, not overall religious tension in the Empire. Indeed, the war is best seen as a failure of the existing Imperial framework to resolve new disputes. Before the war, the Empire was easily the most peaceful part of Europe. Most disputes were resolved via arbitration, not violence. It was only after Ferdinand II issued the Edict of Restitution that the war took on a more religious flavor, and even then Sweden just abused the "freedom of Germany" to achieve its aim of controlling the Baltic grain trade. What's more, the war claimed around 20% of the population of Germany, not 25-40%, and an overwhelming majority of the victims were from the plague/other diseases. Lastly, the assertion that the TYW somehow left the Balkans vulnerable to the Ottomans is ridiculous. The Ottomans already controlled most of the Balkans, and furthermore, the end of the War marked the beginning of the reconquest of Hungary and the Balkans by Austria. For more, I recommend Peter Wilson.
This one is so misleading that I have to conclude OP is from /r/atheism. I have to assume that OP is talking about Charlemagne, who is largely responsible for the Christian crusades into Germany. Firstly, he did try to reconquer the Iberian Peninsula, but failed. Turns out that the Pyrenees are a bitch to cross. What's more, the successive Iberian rump states were often supplied with crusading knights and funds from various Catholic donors, although I don't know enough to really comment definitively on the subject. Anyways, the Saxon lands, ruled by various leaders, were much easier to conquer than the massive Umayyad Empire. It was also a Karling family tradition to convert Saxons from paganism to Christianity. Charlemagne had his power base in Aachen. A trip to Iberia would take much longer than a trip to Saxony, and any trouble at home could be remedied much quicker. Lastly, the Carolingian Empire was highly tolerant at the time. He even employed Isaac, a Jew, as his ambassador to Baghdad. Charlemagne was devoutly religious, but also a pragmatist. War with the Umayyads would be overly costly and probably not worth it in the long end, and that's if he could win. Saxony was land ripe for the taking for a man of Charlemagne's talents. Oh, and the Pope was into it as well, and considering that Charlemagne's cooperation with the Bishop of Rome led him to being crowned the first Emperor of the West in hundreds of years, I think it was the right decision. The Imperial title lasted until 1806.
In conclusion, this meme sucks.
hmm. Well, I think since you don't have a lot of exposure to it, Éminence by Jean-Vincent Blanchard is a good one. Its very clear prose, the author is excellent, and there's all sorts of good footnotes and sources if you're like me. Its a biography of Cardinal Richelieu, who is one of those men who fascinates regardless of time period. (also the subject of my research project, so granted, I am biased).
If you're not feeling Richelieu, I'd recommend wholeheartedly Peter Wilson's The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy. Its lengthy, but he provides a solid introduction to the war and all its twists and turns. I find myself referring back to it a lot. The Thirty Years War is so interesting, its not a question of either/or, but of but/and. It was a religious and a political conflict, and anyone who tells you one or the other is wrong.
Sadly they're not the typical .99 cent books you find on amazon, but they're not too terribly expensive either. And, if you're still at Stanford, the library definitely has them. And they're well worth it, in any case. It just depends on your preference, if you like biography go with Richelieu, if you want to learn about the Thirty Years War in more detail, go with Wilson.
Hello! I've recently finished The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy by Peter H. Wilson. I was curious if anyone knew any books of similar depth on the Italian Wars of the late 15th and early 16th century?
I'm reading The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy at the moment and the first few chapters give a good overview of how the HRE operated at the time and during the war. It's pretty good, highly recommend it.
I'm conjecturing, because the book I read the fact in wasn't super clear (The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy, by Peter H. Wilson - but my guess is, since it was common practice to drill pikemen constantly to march in lockstep; if you saw the tips of the pike dipping and swaying in relative unison, you know the pikemen had been drilled half to death and wouldn't break under shock.
If it was a mass of pike with no visible swaying, you could be the pikemen were inexperienced, and probably would break cohesion with a solid cavalry charge/close volley/push-of-pike.
I just picked up (but haven't started) Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire by Peter H. Wilson. From the reviews on Amazon, people generally seem to like it, but I haven't had a chance to start it myself. It does seem to be pretty comprehensive, but also dense. I have read another book by the the same author The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy which I did enjoy, so I can certainly recommend the author.
You could check this out:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0674062310
This is the one, by Peter H. Wilson. I skimmed through it one day while browsing in Barnes and ended up spending 40 minutes reading a chapter that goes into great detail about Gustavus Adolphus' military movements into northern germany. At that point, I figured I should probably pick it up!
This is a huge period of time, early modern and modern.
The 16th century is defined by religious wars, as is the first half of the 17th. I'm not sure of a good source on the Peasant Wars and such but I do know the absolute megalith you should get for the 30 Years' War (1618-1648) which is honestly the most important thing you could possibly study between 1492 - 1815 (the Early Modern Era traditionally). Yes, even more than the Napoleonic Wars. The greatest volume I've found on this is The Thirty Years' War: Europe's Tragedy by Peter Wilson.
I can not emphasize this enough: I know many people who consider the Early Modern Era to start in 1648 because of how fucking important the conclusion of this war was and what this war represented. It was the last religious war in Europe, it absolutely obliterated political lines and changed everything forever. It harkened the downfall of the top dogs at the time of Sweden, Poland, the Hapsburgs, the Ottomans, and Spain. This is a fucking important war.
Another great war on probably the most tumultuous area of the Early Modern Era is The Northern Wars: War, State and Society in Northeastern Europe, 1558 - 1721 by Robert Frost. If you want a book (that is pricey as shit) on arguably the most important man of the Early Modern Era and who brought France into greatness and basically started Absolutism I'd check out The Wars of Louis XIV: 1667 - 1714.
In terms of the Napoleonic Wars...well...it's a fucking hard topic to cover. There's not a lot of good general histories out there. I'll page /u/DonaldFDraper and ask him to come in if he has anything particular he'd like to recommend but preemptively I'll recommend Bayonets of the Republic: Motivation And Tactics In The Army Of Revolutionary France, 1791-94 written by that same dude who wrote the Wars of Louix XIV. Ultimately you can't separate the military history from the Napoleonic period very easily so you're going to get a bit of both whether you like it or not (but I hope you do! It's a great period of study w.r.t. military history). While I haven't read it I have heard French Society in Revolution, 1789-1799 by David Andress is a good read. However my principal source on the Napoleonic Wars is The Campaigns of Napoleon by David Chandler. Yeah it's expensive, go find it cheap (or free) if you can online (because it does exist, found it before I actually buckled down and bought it) but it is the source on Napoleon. This should be the last book you get though and only if this period becomes a fascination with you.
After that I'd recommend The Franco-Prussian War: The German Invasion of France 1870-1871 by Michael Howard and to help dispel some myths and give a general overview of the common perceptions of WWI The Great War: Myth and Memory by Dan Todman. If you want an overview of events leading up to the war along with the opening year or so I'd recommend the absolute megalith The First World War: Volume I: To Arms by Hew Strachan. This is the book you should get on your introduction to the First World War along with Myth and Memory. Read this one first though.
Oooooh, I'm actually not all that familiar with Early Modern Germany, but I think I've found a few books that may help you with the religious, political and military aspects. Some of these books are pretty expensive, so I'd recommend finding a good library or seeing if your local library does inter-library loans with larger libraries. Usually you have to read the books pretty quick, but it saves paying $150 for a book if you're not in a position to do that. Just be sure to take plenty of notes!
I'd also be willing to look at what you've got but, like I said, I may not be as useful as I first thought.
The Reformation: A History
The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy
The Rise of Modern Warfare: 1618-1815
The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe
The Witchcraft Sourcebook
Germany and the Holy Roman Empire: Volume I
Society and Economy in Germany, 1300-1600
Flesh and Spirit: Private Life in Early Modern Germany
Panaceia's Daughters: Noblewomen as Healers in Early Modern Germany
Ecology, Economy and State Formation in Early Modern Germany
Crime and Culture in Early Modern Germany
The Martial Ethic in Early Modern Germany: Civic Duty and the Right of Arms
He Is the Sun, She Is the Moon: Women in Early Modern Germany
The Realities of Witchcraft and Popular Magic in Early Modern Europe: Culture, Cognition and Everyday Life
The Lesser Key of Solomon
The Art of Combat: A German Martial Arts Treatise of 1570
Nope, this bad boy. Although I have read war and peace it was such a long time ago I can't remember many details of the story.
It would not be fair for me to speak on behalf of the French/West Francian experience, but as far as Germany goes, the answer is no.
For starters, there were four major kingdoms definitively established in western and central Europe from the Treaty of Verdun:
West Francia, encompassing much of modern France,
East Francia, encompassing most of modern Germany,
Italy, which took up the majority of the Italian peninsula and shared borders very close to the modern borders of Italy,
and Lotharingia, a state caught up between West Francia and East Francia, including the Lowlands, modern Switzerland, and a relatively thin strip of territory between them.
Lotharingian land became a source of much contention between several European powers from the Treaty of Verdun onwards. The Burgundian Succession, for instance, was one such example. Another example was the Treaty of Ribemont, where Lotharingia itself was divided up by the other Carolingian kingdoms. This land never gained a national identity, instead fracturing between German and French cultures over the millennia of violence fought over it.
East Francia DID NOT become Germany. When the Holy Roman Empire was recreated by Otto I, he was considered the king of Germany. However, this kingdom was heavily decentralized, and people identified themselves with their feudal overlord than their king, or their Emperor, when the HRE was formed again. When the kingdom title became elective in 911, division into separate “states” inside the Empire was guaranteed. There were intense divisions between Holy Romans in Austria and Holy Romans on the border with Denmark. Holy Romans in Bohemia, between both of these geographic groups, spoke Czech, not German. Economic bases were completely separate in these varying parts of the Empire, and where Austrians had gold, Pomeranians had Baltic fish. Simply put, the only people who ever wanted to make the HRE a proper, centralized, unicultural state in the modern sense were Emperors themselves, and even then, emperors who would have wanted that were few and far between. Asking why the HRE never became Germany is asking why Italy never became German: It was never intended on centralizing.
The Protestant Reformation threw a much stronger wrench into any idea of German unification, with religious division becoming not just more intense, but much, much bloodier. The southerners, like Bavarians and Austrians, held to their Catholic belief, sharing their closeness with the Papacy and their even more Catholic Italian neighbors in the Empire. Northern Holy Romans did not share this warmness and closeness, and did not hold the same trust in the Pope’s word that their siblings of the south did. The printing of the Bible for all to read was something the northern Germans began to cling to very strongly.
So, what changed? As with many questions of Europe between early modernity and today, the answer is Napoleon, or, more accurately, the French Revolution.
The French Revolution was truly terrifying to the European kingdoms and the Emperor of the HRE. With the defeats from the first of the coalitions, the Emperor encouraged minor states to merge with their larger neighbors. In many ways, this was an Austrian power play to consolidate power on all of their lands, allowing for them to unify all their South German land cleanly into a “full” Austria. However, this had the same effect in North Germany. North Germany had many more minor states and city-states, and they, instead, merged into Prussia. The 1806 destruction of the Holy Roman Empire was attributed to Austrian weakness, causing even further resentment in northern and western Germany. The German Confederation formed to protect the minor states that remained, with Austria conveniently being in a weaker state than when they were Emperor. Prussia could easily consolidate power, and, with the rise of nationalism in the 19th century, German nationalism, not Prussian nationalism, was finally born.
Sources:
Peter Wilson’s Heart of Europe and The Thirty Years’ War
"The Thirty Years War" by Peter H. Wilson.
I try to read at least one history book a month, although it's often slow going. This one is pretty dry even by those standards but the political ministrations are quite interesting. I would probably not suggest it to the casual reader. A good place to start for those interested in history is probably "The Coming of the Third Reich" by Richard J. Evans.