The Thirty Years War: A Documentary History

Front Cover
Hackett Publishing Company, Sep 11, 2009 - History - 352 pages
"[A] remarkable collection. . . provides a riveting eyewitness account. . . superb." --Times Literary Supplement


"It is especially welcome that Tryntje Helfferich has taken on the daunting task of translating and editing a well-chosen set of 38 documents in an attractively priced volume. She rightly eschews the interpretation of the war as a general European conflagration in favour of presenting it as a struggle over the religious and political order within the Holy Roman Empire in which other powers intervened. This perspective is set out in a brief general introduction that also explains some of the key causes and that most baffling phenomenon, the imperial constitution. The role of religion is nicely judged and the hackneyed argument of an inevitable war is rightly rejected in favour of a more nuanced approach stressing both context and contingency. . . . The book will be a great asset to anyone teaching the period." --Peter H. Wilson, University of Hull, in The Journal of Military History

About the author (2009)

Tryntje Helfferich is Associate Professor of History, The Ohio State University at Lima.

Bibliographic information