Rethinking the History of Europe
Rome [ENA] On 1 July 2019 Brill, the international scholarly editor, published Rethinking Europe War and Peace in the Early Modern German Lands. The volume whose editors are Gerhild Scholz Williams, Sigrun Haude and Christian Schneider throw interesting sidelights upon The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648). This war lies at the intersection of early modern and modern times. Commonly portrayed as the concluding
chapter of the Reformation, it also determined the future by hastening fundamental changes in the military, legal, political, religious, economic, and cultural arenas that came to mark a new, the modern era. The Thirty Years’ War, whose sources are unexpectedly numerous, was a 17th-century religious conflict fought mainly in central Europe. It remains one of the longest and most ruthless wars in human history, with more than 8 million casualties resulting from military battles as well as from the famine and disease produced by the conflict. The war lasted from 1618 to 1648, starting as a battle among the Catholic and Protestant states that formed the Holy Roman Empire.
Nevertheless, as the Thirty Years’ War advanced, it became less about religion and more about which group would ultimately rule Europe. Ultimately, the conflict transformed the geopolitical face of Europe and the role of religion and nation-states in society. Prompted by the 400th anniversary of the outbreak of the war, the contributors reconsider the event itself and contextualize it within the broader history of the Reformation, military conflicts, peace initiatives, and negotiations of war.