Product Description

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. The extraordinary narrative of the war haunted Europe's leaders into the twentieth century (comparisons with 1939–45 were entirely appropriate) and modern Europe cannot be understood without reference to this dreadful conflict.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4092 in Books
• Published on: 2009-07-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 1040 pages

Review
'Magisterial ... a wonderfully comprehensive and detailed account ... unfailingly instructive and stimulating ... [with] an abundance of well-chosen maps, tables and illustrations'
--Tim Blanning, Telegraph

'A singular feat ... An ambitious and accomplished account of the Thirty Years War'
--Blair Worden, Literary Review

From the Publisher

Review from Paul Kennedy, Sunday Times:

`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'

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

Customer Reviews

Not as Dry As I'd Feared it Would Be
When I saw this book for sale I was afraid that it would be another REALLY long, dry history book written by somebody who doesn't know how to cut things out. Fortunately I was wrong. This book is pretty much the definitive history of the Thirty Years War. At 851 pages of text it is certainly a long book, but given the complexity of the source material I don't see how it could be otherwise. It has to make up for years with little printed research (At least in English) as well as include all the recent papers printed in other languages. As he points out in the introduction, any comprehensive book on the Thirty Years War requires knowledge of at least 14 different languages. For some reason the English speaking countries don't have much interest in the Thirty Years War. There is a very short list of books that cover it.

A lot has changed since the greatest previous book on the war came out in 1938. There has been a copious amount of new research that just wasn't available then. Also, having been written after World War I the perspective is rather different. In some ways that helped of course, since both wars were so tragically pointless. This book is rather different from that one. While Wedgwood's book relied almost entirely on the chroniclers of the time, this book includes a better look at the war's causes. In fact, the war itself doesn't start until page 269. Wedgwood's book kind of reminded me of Gibbons, at least in the way she arranges her information quite clearly to add force to her thesis. Basically her thesis is that the war was a stupid waste that was caused by stupidity and greed for power. Even though I think her thesis works better that Gibbons', it still left a lot out that wasn't essential to her main point. In her defense, it was a relatively brief book at 536 pages (including bibliography). That's about half the size of this one. This book includes everything. I'm sure that even at this length it left many things but it feels complete.

I really appreciate the layout of this book. The chapters are long but they are divided into subsections every few pages which makes it easier to find a point to put it down. That's something that I wish more books would do. The divisions aren't forced either, so if you're on a boring topic a new one will come along shortly. The battles have pretty clear maps which show the layout of the opposing armies. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and in this case they're right. Even though the battle descriptions are fairly brief, I feel that I understand them better than I did reading Wedgwood's book. There are also full-color pictures of all the major players in the war and several of the more important events. If you have any interest in this war I would strongly recommend this book. It might be a difficult read because of it's length, but it's worth the trouble.

For the scholar or knowledgable lay-man.
Well written and very detailed. An excellent book for scholars and the knowledgable lay-man but too packed with detail for the casual reader.
I started reading this book to get some background on this pivital European War.
Unfortunately, the book beat me with the sheer amount of facts and the hundreds, possibly even thousands of characters and places mentioned. I would have liked more maps particularly of the various campaigns. There are battlefield maps but these are very basic and give no reference to their location. There is a basic map of Northern Europe on the front and rear end pages but more detailed maps within the text would have been helpful.
I have given the book 5 stars as it is not its fault that it was too much for me and I am sure it is likely to become one of, if not the definitive books on the subject.

Superb book but hard work
There is no doubt that this book should deserve five stars due to what it achieves in its sheer scope and the wealth of information and detail that Peter Wilson has put into it. The fact he has encompassed nigh on a century worth of history and detail into one book is excellent. However if your looking for a casual read this becomes the problem as it is incredibly meticulous and becomes pretty dry in places. Saying this though I think defeats the point as the book is excellent for what it is as a history of the Thirty Years War, and although quite difficult in parts to churn through you really do feel like everything has been covered and you certainly feel like you've been educated reading it.

A more specific criticism is the rather simple maps provided for the battles, which are not covered in great detail, so you often lose a sense of scale and importance of the battles. The descriptions of events, for example the siege of Magdeburg, can be quite plain and thus you often feel like you are not connecting with how harsh the fighting and period truly was. This is a shame as it has a wider effect on the book where you do not connect with the events due to a lack of real energy in there descriptions and so it can be sometimes hard to grasp the sheer scale and brutality of what was occurring. Having said this however the structure of the book is very well done with the chapters broken down into three main parts, and again with these broken down into sub headings which give the book a very well structured approach and make it easier and more enjoyable to read. Despite the lack of real grit in the description of events and the rather dry content at times this really is worth reading as you certainly get what you paid for, an excellent broad history of the period.