Hackett Publishing

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Through a wide variety of key documents—most of which appear in English for the first time here—this sourcebook reveals the origins, significance, and consequences of the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), the first great, and catastrophic, pan-European conflict. Headnotes introduce each selection, and a general introduction provides both a brief history of the war and a discussion of its causes. An index, suggestions for further reading, a map, and several examples of seventeenth-century artwork are included.

"There is, to my knowledge, no other book of this sort in English that competes in giving a detailed account of the Thirty Years War. Helfferich has done a remarkable job in assembling texts that convey the sweep of the war, the religious and constitutional questions involved, the international involvement of especially Denmark, Sweden, and France, and the turbulent misery that the war produced, especially in the Holy Roman Empire. I do not know of a better representation of what the Peace of Westphalia (the two treaties, at Osnabrück and Münster) actually settled.
   "Helfferich has done a fine job of accurately translating from German and other languages . . . and she has chosen rather large documents for inclusion instead of snipping out small paragraphs from many more documents. One thus has a chance to settle into an author's main points and to appreciate his or her style and point of view."               
     —Erik Midelfort, University of Virginia

"[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

"[E]ach section is prefaced by a very helpful introductory overview of that particular phase of the War. These overviews, along with the general introduction to the book provided by Helfferich, contextualize the sources effectively and also provide a concise narrative history of the War for any student new to the subject."
     —European History Quarterly


Tryntje Helfferich is Assistant Professor of History, Ohio State University.