European History Bookshop: Europe to the End of the 19th Century.

Evolution and Revolution

Entropy is the natural condition of the historical landscape. Institutional monoliths are continually subjected to internal and external pressures. When the vigour that creates them fails, institutions collapse through lack of continual modification and refinement. European history is the catalogue of institutions atrophying through failed dynastic ambitions and alliances, through religious reformation and counter-reformation, through subversion and through constitutional reform. All of our Bookshop pages include events from the broad sweep of European history, at different times and from different perspectives. The titles on this page offer selective additional material.

The Times Atlas of European History / Times Publishing
Very useful presentation of the changing political boundaries in Europe from earliest times up until the collapse of communism. With accompanying text.

—————————————————————————————————————-

A History of Venice / John Julius Norwich

There is a tradition that Venice was founded, behind its defensive marshes, by refugees from the sack of Aquileia by Attila in 452. John Julius Norwich tracks the rise from obscure settlement to major European mercantile republic, and to its final defeat by Napoleon in 1797. More than a thousand years of history are compressed into a readable and comprehensible volume that sets internal intrigue alongside international politics. And see also John Ruskin’s The Stones of Venice on our Civilisation & Exploration page.

—————————————————————————————————————-

The Black Death / Philip Ziegler
A detailed examination of the pathology, progress and aftermath of the plagues that reduced the population of Europe by a third in the 14th century.

—————————————————————————————————————-

The Habsburgs / Andrew Wheatcroft
By no means a conventional chronological narrative, the author examines the dynasty from its roots in the Swiss mountains to its pre-eminence amongst the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire and beyond. Explores many interesting side issues.

—————————————————————————————————————-

Poland: A History / Adam Zamoyski

Review to come.

—————————————————————————————————————-

St. Joan of Arc / Vita Sackville-West

The biography of the Maid of Orleans, who was moved by her visions and voices to revitalise and lead the forces of the Armagnac Dauphine against the alliance of Burgundians and Henry VI of England. The Dauphin was crowned as Charles VII through her efforts but to all intents he abandoned her to her fate following her capture. There followed a trial for heresy before a French ecclesiastical court, who handed her over to the secular arm and the stake.

—————————————————————————————————————-

The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici / Christopher Hibbert
Beginning with a description of Florence in the 15th century, this history examines the role of the mercantile aristocracy in the Florentine Republic. The book is principally concerned with the lives and works of Cosimo de’ Medici and of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who provided the template for Renaissance Man — statesman, builder, poet, patron of the arts.

—————————————————————————————————————-

The Prince / Machiavelli
Generally regarded as modelled on Cosimo de’ Medici. The handbook of realpolitik and the helpmeet of megalomaniacs from that day to this.

—————————————————————————————————————-

At the Court of the Borgia / Johann Burchard

The secret diary of the Master of Ceremonies to the court of Pope Alexander VI, father of Cesare and Lucrezia Borgia. The journal bears witness to the excesses of the family that has become synonymous with the corrupt underside of the Italian Renaissance.

—————————————————————————————————————-

The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II Vol I
The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II Vol II
Fernand Braudel
Braudel takes as his springboard the latter half of the 16th century and from there roams without restraint through the social, cultural and economic history of the Mediterranean Sea.

—————————————————————————————————————-

The Spanish Inquisition / Joseph Perez

The Inquisition had its roots in the activities of Dominic Guzman during the Albigensian Crusade and his foundation of the Dominican Order. The Spanish Inquisition was formally established by Papal Bull in 1478. There followed a Kafkaesque and centuries-long reign of terror that targeted Jews, Lutherans, humanists and anyone else who strayed from the strict orthodoxy of Catholicism. The Inquisition existed as a virtual state within a state, with its own leaders, councils, courts and financial institutions, down to the 19th century.

—————————————————————————————————————-

The French Wars of Religion 1562-1629 / Mack P Holt

Professor Holt’s stated intention is to restore the religious dimension to the history of the French civil wars of the 16th and 17th Centuries, a dimension that had been understated by recent historians in favour of political, economic and social factors. Updated in 2005 and written for undergraduates or for the general reader coming to the subject for the first time, this is a concise investigation of France during the Reformation, and the religious differences that developed, and were exploited, through the early Huguenot persecutions and the St Bartholomew’s Day massacres, to the Edict of Nantes, down to the fall of La Rochelle and the submission of the Duke of Rohan to Louis XIII. But the ancillary factors are by no means ignored: the opposition of the House of Guise to the Valois and Bourbon dynasties; the pragmatic attempts of Catherine de Medici, as Queen Mother, to seek compromise between the warring factions through her Regency over successive sons; the fanaticism of the Catholic League and Protestant extremists alike; the economic devastation caused by transient armies; the temporary alignments and revolts of the Catholic and Calvinist peasantry in the face of aristocratic repression; the interventions of neighbouring states. Underlying all was the unique relationship of the French monarchy and the Gallic church, whereby the latter imparted a sacral status to kings who were obliged through their coronation oath to defend French Catholicism. This last added fuel to the later wars, when the Calvinist Henry of Navarre became heir apparent; a situation that was resolved on his succession as the first Bourbon king, when he abjured Protestantism and introduced a fifteen-year period of comparative peace and prosperity. He was, nonetheless, assassinated by a Catholic extremist; an event that left a regency government in place and led to the last conflicts between Protestant and Catholic interests.

—————————————————————————————————————-

Iron Kingdom: The Rise & Downfall of Prussia 1600-1947 / Christopher Clark

Christopher Clark tracks the development of Brandenburg-Prussia from its origins as a barren, indefensible and insignificant outpost of the Holy Roman Empire, to the power that federated the German states, and to its eventual abolition by the Allies after World War II. This definitive history questions much of the received wisdom and the image of a rigid and militaristic society that, in the words of Churchill in 1943, was at “the core of Germany” and “the source of the recurring pestilence”. Clark examines the roles of Prussia’s charismatic leaders, from The Great Elector, through Frederick the Great, to Bismark; and the dynastic marriages, wars and social organisation that were necessary to ensure its survival amongst the power blocs of Europe and through religious turmoil. Through all of this Prussia evolved, and especially under Frederick the Great and the influence of the European Enlightenment (Voltaire was a close familiar of Frederick), as a progressive cultural and intellectual powerhouse, a bulwark against absolutist monarchy and Napoleonic ambition. The author argues that ensuing events were not the consequence of Prussia’s leading role in the consolidation of the German state, rather that long-established ideals were corrupted by the exigencies of German enlargement and the deliberate fostering of a new pan-German nationalism.

—————————————————————————————————————-

The Thirty Years War / C V Wedgwood
Religious antagonisms and the dynastic politics of the Holy Roman Empire provided the tinder: Protestant against Catholic, Lutheran against Calvinist, Jesuit against Capuchin; German Liberties against the Holy Roman Emperors, United Provinces against Spanish Netherlands, Bourbon against Hapsburg. The election of Frederick, Elector Palatine, to the crown of Bohemia struck the spark. The thirty years between 1618 and 1648 saw the European enemies of the Hapsburgs drawn together in a war of continually shifting alliances, fought predominantly on the soil of Germany and leaving a devastated wasteland.

—————————————————————————————————————-

The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648-1815 / Tim Blanning

Tim Blanning leads us confidently, and sometimes provocatively, through the complexities of the most extraordinary two and a half centuries of European history. 1648 is a resonant date, less arbitrary than most when settling on a watershed between one era and the next. The year saw an end to the Thirty Years War that had ravaged Europe; the immediate consequences were an independent Dutch Republic, the configuration of German-speaking Europe, and final recognition that Roman Catholic hegemony was at an end. At the same time, 1648 saw the onset of the Frondes, the French civil wars; and the English Civil War was in its last fratricidal throes, to be followed in 1649 by the execution of Charles I and the proclamation of republic. The closing date of this ambitious history has, perhaps, even greater resonance, as the year that saw the defeat of Napoleon and the resolution of some, if not all, of the residual issues and conflicts that had assailed the continent since the Peace of Westphalia. The value of this work lies, as much as anything, in the author’s examination of the social and economic context of his chosen period, ranging through the constraints imposed by transport and communications, the growth of manufacturing and trade, and the lives of a largely peasant population as contrasted with the leisurely pursuits and vainglorious aspirations of the various European elites.

—————————————————————————————————————-

Letters on England / Voltaire

During his exile in England, the radical French philosopher offered his compatriots an overview of a Britain that was on the cusp of the Enlightenment, the Age of Improvement and the Industrial Revolution. The French establishment saw the letters as an attack on the ancien regime and ordered their destruction and the persecution of the author.

—————————————————————————————————————-

The French Revolution / Thomas Carlyle

On first acquaintance, the classic history of the origins and aftermath of the French Revolution falls awkwardly on the modern ear. To the studied and often elaborate elegance of 19th Century historiography, Carlyle appends a premeditated archaicism to create a unique epic and poetic form that stretches the English language to the limits of its possibilities. Added to this is a deliberate obscurity whereby the key players are masked by metaphor. But the exhilaration and wit of the writing and the almost exclusive use of the present tense drive the narrative forward at a pace that leaves the reader breathless, more than adequately rewarding perseverance. The author’s ambivalence towards the events and the dramatis personae is obvious: his forceful criticism of the absolutist state (“France was a long despotism tempered by epigrams”) has a counterpoint in his sympathy for aristocratic victims of the Revolution (especially Marie Antoinette); and an equivalent sympathy for the oppressed populace did not extend to many of those imposing increasingly radical solutions, culminating in ‘the seagreen Incorruptible’ Robespierre and the Terror, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Those who seek patterns in history will relish the stages by which revolution replaced absolutist monarchy by a series of absolute dictatorships.

—————————————————————————————————————-

A Journal of the Terror / Jean Baptiste Clery

The diary of the Valet-de-Chambre of Louis XVI, which records the king’s confinement prior to his execution in the aftermath of the French Revolution.

—————————————————————————————————————-

Fin de Siecle

By the end of the 19th Century imperial institutions and political configurations within Europe and on its periphery were approaching the last stages of a disintegration that was to be completed by the Great War (for material on the Ottoman Empire see The Ottoman Centuries and A History of the Arab Peoples on our Rome & Byzantium page). 1848, the ‘Year of Revolutions’, had brought pressure to bear in many quarters. The century had seen the growth of separatism, triggered by maladministration and corruption, in the quest for self-determination and democracy and in some cases with the added ingredient of socialist political theory. New nation states were created, and emerging nationalist movements proliferated through the propaganda of aspiring political classes and by the usual methods: the distortion and re-invention of history, the stimulation of patriotic fervour without regard to historical political geography, the creation of folkish ‘heritage’, the fomentation of ancient grudges, the incitement of hatred towards neighbours. America confronted Islam well over a century before the current difficulties: anti-imperialist American evangelists were active in the Balkans, Armenia and the Levant, encouraging ruptures between Christian and Muslim communities and between provinces and the central Ottoman regime. And by the end of the century Jewish intellectuals, looking for an escape from endemic anti-Semitism, had forged the Zionist movement out of a racial attachment to historical Israel that was to embrace back-to-the-land utopianism and socialist idealism. Small scale land purchases in Palestine by this marginal group laid the ground for the modern Jewish state.

The Fall of the House of Hapsburg / Edward Crankshaw
The last years of the Habsburgs, the decline and destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the final end of the last vestiges of the Holy Roman Empire.

—————————————————————————————————————-

Nicholas and Alexandra / Robert K Massie

Saccharine in parts but compelling nonetheless. Massie places perhaps rather too much emphasis on the haemophilia of the Tzarevich Alexei as a contributing factor to the fall of the Romanovs. Although the resultant involvement of Rasputin with the Imperial family caused outrage and contributed to the mismanagement of the war, there had been a long inheritance of political and revolutionary unrest that exploded under the last inadequate Tzar and Tzarina. Their deposition was an event that had been waiting in the wings of history. Ten Days That Shook the World, John Reed’s account of the 1917 Revolution, is available from our 20th Century page. Sergei Eisenstein’s masterpieces The Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October 1917 (1928) are available from our Film Store.