Matters concerning finance are studied in Earl J. Hamilton, American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain, 1501–1650 (1934, reprinted 1977), a classic that launched a continuing debate. Political and cultural influences are the subject of Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (1974), a Marxist view of the role of the state in the birth of modern capitalism; Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (1987), a lengthy and entertaining exploration; Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971), on the impact of the culture of Reformation; and R.H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (1926, reissued 1984), a classic study of Calvinism and the capitalistic ethos.
A broader approach to early modern society is offered summarily in Peter Burke, The Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy: Essays on Perception and Communication (1987), focusing on detail rather than central movements of early modern culture; Roger Chartier (ed.), Passions of the Renaissance (1989; originally published in French, 1986), a volume of essays dealing with the period from the Renaissance to Enlightenment, from the series A History of Private Life; Brian Pullan, The Jews of Europe and the Inquisition of Venice, 1550–1670 (1983), an often poignant examination of ethnic relations; and Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller (1980; originally published in Italian, 1976), an excellent social history based on the story of an eccentric miller and his cosmological views.
Politics and diplomacy are dealt with in many general histories of the period. Narrative and analytical accounts, with detailed bibliographies, are offered in J.R. Hale, Renaissance Europe, 1480–1520 (1971, reprinted 1985); G.R. Elton, Reformation Europe, 1517–1559 (1963); J.H. Elliott, Europe Divided, 1559–1598 (1968, reprinted 1985); and Geoffrey Parker, Europe in Crisis, 1598–1648 (1979), all four in the Fontana History of Europe series. G.R. Potter (ed.), The Renaissance, 1493–1520 (1957); G.R. Elton (ed.), The Reformation, 1520–1559, 2nd ed. (1990); R.B. Wernham (ed.), The Counter-Reformation and Price Revolution, 1559–1610 (1968); and J.P. Cooper (ed.), The Decline of Spain and the Thirty Years War, 1609–48/59 (1970), the first four volumes in The New Cambridge Modern History series, offer a sequence of chapters by various authors, thematically organized. H.G. Koenigsberger, George L. Mosse, and G.Q. Bowler, Europe in the Sixteenth Century, 2nd ed. (1989), treats the earlier part of the period. The last 50 years of the period, dominated by the genesis and course of continental war, are best approached through Geoffrey Parker (ed.), The Thirty Years’ War, rev. ed. (1987). David Herlihy N. Geoffrey Parker The age of absolutism, 1648–1789
Gordon East, An Historical Geography of Europe, 5th ed. (1966), provides an informative introduction to geographic features influencing the history of the period. H.D. Schmidt, “The Establishment of ‘Europe’ as a Political Expression,” The Historical Journal, 9(2):172–178 (1966), discusses the question of definition. Main themes are covered in the essays of G.N. Clark, The Seventeenth Century, 2nd ed. (1947, reprinted 1981); and the appropriate volumes of The New Cambridge Modern History series (1957– ). General surveys include E.N. Williams, The Ancien Régime in Europe: Government and Society in the Major States, 1648–1789 (1970); D.H. Pennington, Seventeenth-Century Europe (1970); Geoffrey Treasure, The Making of Modern Europe, 1648–1780 (1985); M.S. Anderson, Europe in the Eighteenth Century, 1713–1783, 3rd ed. (1987); and William Doyle, The Old European Order, 1660–1800 (1978, reprinted 1984). Specific social and demographic questions are explored in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Times of Feast, Times of Famine: A History of Climate Since the Year 1000 (1971, reissued 1988; originally published in French, 1967); Michael W. Flinn, The European Demographic System, 1500–1820 (1981); Lucien Paul Victor Febvre, A New Kind of History: From the Writings of Febvre, trans. from French, ed. by Peter Burke (1973); Robert Mandrou, Introduction to Modern France, 1500–1640: An Essay in Historical Psychology (1975; originally published in French, 1961); Philippe Ariès, Centuries of Childhood: A Social History of Family Life (1962, reissued 1979; originally published in French, 1960); John McManners, Death and the Enlightenment: Changing Attitudes to Death Among Christians and Unbelievers in Eighteenth-Century France (1981); James C. Riley, The Eighteenth-Century Campaign to Avoid Disease (1987); and Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: A History of the Modern Sensibility (1983; also published as Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England, 1500–1800, 1983). Olwen H. Hufton, The Poor of Eighteenth-Century France, 1750–1789 (1974), a study of poverty with much about women; Michael R. Weisser, Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Europe (1979); and E.J. Hobsbawm, Bandits, rev. ed. (1981), provide important insights into early modern social history.
Marc Bloch, French Rural History: An Essay on Its Basic Characteristics (1966, reprinted 1978; originally published in French, 1931); Jack M. Potter, May N. Diaz, and George M. Foster (eds.), Peasant Society (1967); Pierre Goubert, The French Peasantry in the Seventeenth Century (1986; originally published in French, 1982); and Jerome Blum, Lord and Peasant in Russia: From the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century (1961, reprinted 1971), are important studies of peasant life. The economic and social conditions in the urban areas are the subject of Gaston Roupnel, La Ville et la campagne au XVIIe siècle: étude sur les populations du pays dijonnais (1955); Orest Ranum, Paris in the Age of Absolutism (1968, reprinted 1979); and Gerald L. Burke, The Making of Dutch Towns: A Study in Urban Development from the Tenth to the Seventeenth Centuries (1956). The early modern aristocracy is studied in A. Goodwin (ed.), The European Nobility in the Eighteenth Century: Studies of the Nobilities of the Major European States in the Pre-Reform Era, 2nd ed. (1967); and Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret, The French Nobility in the Eighteenth Century: From Feudalism to Enlightenment (1985; originally published in French, 1976). Economic questions are examined in the appropriate volumes of The Cambridge Economic History of Europe series (1966– ); Peter Earle (ed.), Essays in European Economic History, 1500–1800 (1974); and B.H. Slicher Van Bath, The Agrarian History of Western Europe, A.D. 500–1850 (1963). G.N. Clark, Science and Social Welfare in the Age of Newton, 2nd ed. (1949, reissued 1970), looks at the connections between science and technology. Commerce and trade and their significance as characteristics of the home countries are discussed in D.C. Coleman (ed.), Revisions in Mercantilism (1969); Ralph Davis, The Rise of the Atlantic Economies (1973); J.H. Parry, Trade and Dominion: The European Oversea Empires in the Eighteenth Century (1971); and C.R. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire, 1600–1800 (1965, reprinted 1977).