Europe's Tragedy

Europe's Tragedy
Author :
Publisher :
Total Pages : 1048
Release :
ISBN-10 : UCSD:31822036404168
ISBN-13 :
Rating : 4/5 ( Downloads)

Book Synopsis Europe's Tragedy by : Peter Hamish Wilson

Download or read book Europe's Tragedy written by Peter Hamish Wilson and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 1048 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 England 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.


Europe's Tragedy Related Books

Europe's Tragedy
Language: en
Pages: 1048
Authors: Peter Hamish Wilson
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2009 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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 was
The Thirty Years War
Language: en
Pages: 1038
Authors: Peter H. Wilson
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2019-08-20 - Publisher: Harvard University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A deadly continental struggle, the Thirty Years War devastated seventeenth-century Europe, killing nearly a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to towns and
The Tragedy of the European Union
Language: en
Pages: 210
Authors: George Soros
Categories: Business & Economics
Type: BOOK - Published: 2014-03-11 - Publisher: Public Affairs

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The European Union could soon be a thing of the past. Xenophobia is rampant and commonly reflected in elections across the continent. Great Britain may hold a r
Eurotragedy
Language: en
Pages: 673
Authors: Ashoka Mody
Categories: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS
Type: BOOK - Published: 2018 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

EuroTragedy is an incisive exploration of the tragedy of how the European push for integration was based on illusions and delusions pursued in the face of warni
The Thirty Years War
Language: en
Pages: 536
Authors: C. V. Wedgwood
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016-09-13 - Publisher: New York Review of Books

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Europe in 1618 was riven between Protestants and Catholics, Bourbon and Hapsburg--as well as empires, kingdoms, and countless principalities. After angry Protes