The following is a list of various books on the Thirty Years War, participants in the war and Early Modern history generally. I have provided my own (somewhat idiosyncratic) annotations for some of them.
For a scholarly bibliography, please be sure to review the relevant section of Parker’s The Thirty Years War.
| Title: |
The Cambridge Modern History, Volume IV, The Thirty Years' War |
| Editors: |
Ward, Sir A.W.; Prothero, Sir G.W.; Leathes, Sir Stanley KCB |
| Authors: |
Ward, Sir A.W.; Brown, Horatio F.; Leathes, Sir Stanley KCB; Reddaway, W.F.; Prothero, Sir G.W.; Lloyd, E.M.; Shaw, W.A.; Tanner, J.R.; Brown, P. Hume; Dunlop, R.; Firth, C.H.; Hume, Martin; Brosch, Moritz; Edmunson, George; Egerton, H.E.; Clutton-Brock, A.; Boutroux, Èmile |
| Publisher: |
The Cambridge University Press |
| ISBN: |
None |
| Print Status: |
Out of print |
The best straight narrative history available. In level of detail, and (relatively) dispassionate presentation of facts, it is unequalled by any of the other works cited. Despite the cast-of-thousands authorship of the book as a whole, the portion representing the history of the Thirty Years War itself is written by A.W. Ward. This individual authorship avoids the inconsistency that mars Parker's book.
The book is, however, brutally long. If you are looking for a survey of the war or are unwilling to devote a significant amount of time to a book on it, steer clear. Also bear in mind that the book is arranged as a series of essays, with those on the war being interrupted by long stretches on other (often useful) topics. My recommendation would be to read the portions on the war seriatim and then return to the other essays.
| Title: |
The Thirty Years War: The Holy Roman Empire and Europe, 1618-1648 |
| Author: |
Asch, Ronald G. |
| Publisher: |
St. Martin's Press, Inc. |
| ISBN: |
0-312-16585-4 (paperback); 0-312-16584-6 (hardcover) |
| Print Status: |
In print |
Asch’s recent work is an admirably clear introduction to the war. This is partly a result of his unique approach to the “story arc” of the War. He anchors his narrative on the Bohemian Rebellion, the Edict of Restitution and the Peace of Prague. The effect is refreshing.
| Title: |
The Thirty Years' War |
| Author: |
Lee, Stephen J |
| Publisher: |
Routledge |
| ISBN: |
0-415-06027-3 |
| Print Status: |
In print (2d ed.) |
Part of the Lancaster Pamphlets series designed to assist British students in “swotting up for the A-levels,” this gives a summary of the war, short biographies and a summary of the “major issues”. It provides a very good seventy-odd-page introduction: think of it as “Parker Lite”.
| Title: |
The Thirty Years War: 1618-1648 |
| Author: |
Pagès, Georges |
| Translators: |
Maland, David; Hooper, John |
| Publisher: |
Harper & Row |
| ISBN: |
06-136034-1 |
| Print Status: |
Out of print |
| Title: |
The Thirty Years’ War |
| Editor: |
Parker, Geoffrey |
| Authors: |
Adams, Simon; Benecke, Gerhard; Bonney, Richard J.; Elliot, John H.; Evans, R.J.W.; Freiderichs, Christopher R.; Nischan, Bodo; Parker, Geoffrey; Petersen, E. Laedwig; Roberts, Michael |
| Publisher: |
Routledge |
| ISBN: |
0-415-12883-8 (paperback); 0-415-15458-8 (hardcover) |
| Print Status: |
In print (2d ed.) |
Parker’s work is, as it cover blurb proclaims, “the best as well as the most up to date introduction to the war”. A virtuoso display of cat-herding by Editor Parker, welding together a (relatively) unified work out of separate essays by multiple academics.
The book has virtues other than as a narrative history, as well. The chronological table, the extensive annotated bibliography and the brief biographical data (buried away in the index) are all very useful. A particular favorite of mine is the “whose side are they on” chart, showing who was allied with or against the Emperor at any given moment.
However, the work does have its problems: the first is sheer density of information, resulting in some difficulty in following the (not uncomplicated) narrative. This is a result of the book’s pan-European view of the conflict, and the comparative brevity of the sections actually narrating the war’s history (about 140 pages in the second paperback edition).
The second results from the multiple-author format: the work adopts a he-said/she-said approach to the years 1621-29, presenting first the Protestant and then the Catholic point of view, each segment being written by a different author. This results in such confusing phenomena as Wallenstein’s army crushing Mansfeldt scores of pages before it is mustered in.
| Title: |
The Thirty Years War |
| Author: |
Wedgewood, Dame C.V. |
| Publisher: |
Methuen & Co. |
| ISBN: |
0-416-32020-1 (paperback) |
| Print Status: |
Out of print |
| Title: |
The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline |
| Author: |
Elliot, J.H. |
| Publisher: |
Yale University Press |
| ISBN: |
0-300-04218-3 (paperback) |
| Print Status: |
In print (?) |
| Title: |
Anne of Austria: Queen of France |
| Author: |
Kleinman, Ruth |
| Publisher: |
Ohio State University Press |
| ISBN: |
0-8142-0429-5 (paperback) |
| Print Status: |
In print |
| Title: |
Wallenstein: His Life Narrated |
| Author: |
Mann, Golo |
| Translator: |
Kessler, Charles |
| Publisher: |
Holt, Rinehart and Winston |
| ISBN: |
0-03-091884-7 |
| Print Status: |
Out of print |
A brilliantly written biography. The beginning is rather better than the end: Mann becomes bogged down in trying to figure out whether or not Wallenstein was, in fact, a traitor to the Emperor.
| Title: |
Louis XIII: The Just |
| Author: |
Moote, A. Llloyd |
| Publisher: |
University of California Press |
| ISBN: |
0-520-06485-2 (hardcover) |
| Print Status: |
In print (?) |
| Title: |
Gustavus Adolphus (2d. Edition) |
| Author: |
Roberts, Michael |
| Publisher: |
Longman Publishing Group |
| ISBN: |
0-582-09000-8 (paperback) |
| Print Status: |
In print |
| Title: |
Turenne: Marshall of France |
| Author: |
Weygand, Gen. Max |
| Translator: |
Ives, George B. |
| Publisher: |
Houghton Mifflin Company |
| ISBN: |
None |
| Print Status: |
Out of print |
Spends very little time on Turenne’s campaigns in Germany, viewing them mostly as Formative Incidents in Our Hero’s Career. What little is there is marred by factual error: the French did not recapture Freiburg-im-Bresgau after the battle of Freiburg and Amalie-Elisabeth was a her not a him.
| Title: |
Cardinal Richelieu: Power and the Pursuit of Wealth |
| Author: |
Bergin, Joseph |
| Publisher: |
Yale University Press |
| ISBN: |
0-300-03495-5 (paperback) |
| Print Status: |
In print |
| Title: |
The Rise of Richelieu |
| Author: |
Bergin, Joseph |
| Publisher: |
Manchester University Press |
| ISBN: |
0-7190-5238-6 (paperback) |
| Print Status: |
In print |
| Title: |
Richelieu and His Age (III Vols.) |
| Author: |
Burckhardt, Carl J. |
| Translator: |
Hoy, Bernard |
| Publisher: |
Harcourt Brace Jovanonvich, Inc. |
| ISBN: |
0-15-177158-8 |
| Print Status: |
Out of print |
| Title: |
The Political Testament of Cardinal Richelieu |
| Author: |
du Plessis, Armand Jean, Cardinal of Richelieu |
| Translator: |
Hill, Henry Bertram |
| Publisher: |
University of Wisconsin Press |
| ISBN: |
0-299-02424-5 (paperback) |
| Print Status: |
In print |
| Title: |
A History of Modern Germany: The Reformation |
| Author: |
Holborn, Hajo |
| Publisher: |
Princeton University Press |
| ISBN: |
0-691-00795-0 (paperback) |
| Print Status: |
In print |
| Title: |
Denmark in the Thirty Years’ War, 1618-1648: King Christian IV and the Decline of the |
| Author: |
Lockhart, Paul Douglas |
| Publisher: |
Susquehann University Press |
| ISBN: |
0-945636-76-8 |
| Print Status: |
Out of print |
| Title: |
Muscovy and Sweden in the Thirty Years' War: 1630-35 |
| Author: |
Porchnev, B.F. |
| Translator: |
Pearce, Brian |
| Publisher: |
Cambridge University Press |
| ISBN: |
0-521-45139-6 (hardcover) |
| Print Status: |
Out of print |
| Title: |
The Thirty Years War |
| Author: |
Polišenský, J.V. |
| Translator: |
Evans, Robert |
| Publisher: |
University of California Press |
| ISBN: |
0-520-01868-0 (hardcover) |
| Print Status: |
Out of print |
A history on three levels, this book gives a mediocre history of the Thirty Years War in general, an interesting history of the war in Bohemia in particular, and a history of the war in the town of Zlín in southern Moravia which is only slightly less dull than it sounds.
| Title: |
Army, Aristocracy, Monarchy: Essays on War, Society and Government in Austria, 1618-1780 |
| Author: |
Barker, Thomas M. |
| Publisher: |
Social Science Monographs, Inc. |
| ISBN: |
0-300-03495-5 (hardcover) |
| Print Status: |
In print |
Contains a sketch of the life of Ottavio Piccolomini, with particular emphasis on his machinations at the time of Wallenstein’s assassination. Other essays cover the life of Habsburg loyalist Václav Lobkovic and the fate of the foreign military aristocracy grafted onto Bohemian society after the Battle of White Mountain. On the last, I find particularly fascinating his summary of the House of Taafe, which maintained itself as aristocrats in both Bohemia and their ancestral County Sligo Ireland until from the time of the Thirty Years War until shortly after World War One.
| Title: |
The Military Intellectual and Battle: Raimondo Montecuccoli and the Thirty Years War |
| Author: |
Barker, Thomas M. |
| Publisher: |
State University of New York Press |
| ISBN: |
0-87395-205-2 (hardcover) |
| Print Status: |
Out of print |
Really three books in one.
The first is a biographical sketch of Montecuccoli’s career, primarily during the Thirty Years War, which constitutes a useful “Raimondo’s-eye” walk through the war. This is particularly useful, since, as Parker points out in his book, the war is infrequently looked at from the Imperial perspective. Thus, a view of the war as seen by one of the Emperor’s better commanders is necessarily useful.
I found myself annoyed by one glaring error in this portion of the text: Barker seems convinced that Ferdinand III was made King of the Romans at the 1630 Regensburg Diet. Since I’ve always thought that the truly humorous thing about the Diet was that Ferdinand gave up Wallenstein and got absolutely nothing in return, I will admit to being oversensitive on the point.
The second portion of the book is a translation of a Montecuccoli manuscript, Sulle Battaglie. This is interesting from the perspective of tactical theory. It is also interesting since it shows what a well-informed and intelligent observer thought about the major battles of the day (incidents from which are given as examples for one or another of Montecuccoli’s points).
The last portion of the book is a detailed tactical description of Breitenfeld, Lützen, Nördlingen and Wittstock.
| Title: |
The Jesuits and the Thirty Years War: Kings, Courts, and Confessors |
| Author: |
Bireley, Robert, S.J. |
| Publisher: |
Cambridge University Press |
| ISBN: |
0-521-82017-0 (hardback) |
| Print Status: |
In print |
| Title: |
Peacemaking in Early Modern Europe: Cardinal Mazarin and the Congress of Westphalia |
| Author: |
Croxton, Derek |
| Publisher: |
Susquehanna University Press |
| ISBN: |
1-57591-017-9 (hardcover) |
| Print Status: |
In print |
An excellent book. It provides the most cogent explanation I have read of the complicated French and Bavarian campaigns in southwest Germany in 1643-46, as well as the complex negotiations at Westphalia during the same period.
It examines the inter-relationship between success on the battlefield and political posture, concluding that French policy remained remarkably constant while that of Bavaria was highly sensitive to the military situation. It examines the question of what exactly the French meant by their various demands for territorial recompense in Alsace (they hadn’t a clue). It also examines the reasons for the deliberately contradictory formulation finally included in the Peace, which Croxton determines was included less because of respect for Habsburg power than out of French concern for the susceptibilities of their German allies.
| Title: |
The Relation of Sydnam Poyntz 1624-1636 |
| Editor: |
Goodrick, A.T.S. |
| Author: |
Poyntz, Sydnam |
| Publisher: |
Camden Society |
| ISBN: |
None |
| Print Status: |
Out of print |
An account of the war by one of the participants, an Englishman in the service first of Mansfeldt, then the Saxons and lastly the Emperor. It comes with a rather snippy forward by an Edwardian English divine, pointing out all of the various things Poyntz made up (and the rather lesser number he didn’t).
It becomes clear that even an officer like Poyntz (he rose to the rank of captain) marched where he was told and hadn’t a clue where he was or why. A salutary lesson to the re-enactor community: ignorance of the war is the ultimate authenticity.
| Title: |
The Thirty Years' War |
| Editor: |
Rabb, Theodore K. |
| Authors: |
Various |
| Publisher: |
University Press of America, Inc. |
| ISBN: |
0-8191-1747-1 (paperback); 0-8191-1746-3 (hardcover) |
| Print Status: |
In print (2d ed.) |
Not a history of the war, rather a history of the historiography of the war over the last two centuries. Rabb includes excerpts from various historians discussing the war generally, as well as Gustavus, Wallenstein and Richelieu.
{Home}