Europe's Tragedy: A New History of the Thirty Years War

(Paperback)

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A devastating account of a war which raged all over Europe, with terrible and long-lasting consequences for the whole continent Winner of the Society for Military History Distinguished Book Award 2011 The horrific series of conflicts known as the Thirty Years War (1618-48) tore the heart out of Europe, killing perhaps a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to whole areas of Central Europe to such a degree that many towns and regions never recovered. All the major European powers apart from Russia were heavily involved and, while each country started out with rational war aims, the fighting rapidly spiralled out of control, with great battles giving way to marauding bands of starving soldiers spreading plague and murder. The war was both a religious and a political one and it was this tangle of motives that made it impossible to stop. Whether motivated by idealism or cynicism, everyone drawn into the conflict was destroyed by it. At its end a recognizably modern Europe had been created but at a terrible price. Peter Wilson's book is a major work, the first new history of the war in a generation, and a fascinating, brilliantly written attempt to explain a compelling series of events. Wilson's great strength is in allowing the reader to understand the tragedy of mixed motives that allowed rulers to gamble their countries' future with such horrifying results. The principal actors in the drama (Wallenstein, Ferdinand II, Gustavus Adolphus, Richelieu) are all here, but so is the experience of the ordinary soldiers and civilians, desperately trying to stay alive under impossible circumstances.

Reviews

Peter Wilson is a brave man to undertake a new general survey of one of the most long-lasting, multi-dimensional and controversial wars of all time. It is a joy to report that, at least in this reviewer's opinion, Europe's Tragedy succeeds brilliantly ... His scholarship seems to me remarkable, his prose light and lovely, his judgments fair -- Paul Kennedy * Sunday Times *
An ambitious and accomplished account, abreast of modern scholarship, has been overdue, and EUROPE'S TRAGEDY supplies it all admirably -- Blair Worden * Literary Review *
A wonderfully comprehensive and detailed account -- Tim Blanning * Daily Telegraph *
Magisterial ... a wise, wide-seeking account, tenaciously researched -- Lauro Martines * The Times Literary Supplement *
A history of prodicious erudition ... a definitive account has been needed, and now Peter Wilson has provided it -- Jeffrey Collins * Wall Street Journal *

Author Bio

Peter Wilson is the GF Grant Professor of History at the University of Hull and the author of books on Germany and on the Holy Roman Empire.