The Essential Thirty Years War

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This abridgment of Tryntje Helfferich's acclaimed 2009 anthology The Thirty Years War features an expanded General Introduction and annotation designed to support student readings in swift-moving surveys of European and World history.

From reviews of the unabridged edition:

"There is, to my knowledge, no other book of this sort in English. . . . 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.
    "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

"[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

"[A] remarkable collection . . . provides a riveting eyewitness account . . . superb."
   —Times Literary Supplement

Contents:

List of Illustrations
Map: The Holy Roman Empire, 1618-1648
General Introduction

I. Outbreak of the Thirty Years War (1618-1623)
  1. The Defenestration of Prague (May 23, 1618)
  2. Terrifying and Piteous News from Bohemia (1621)
  3. Kipper and Wipper Period (1621)
  4. Letter of Archbishop Ferdinand of Cologne (July 6, 1622)
  5. Letter of Elector John George of Saxony (February 23, 1623)

II. The Intervention of Denmark and Sweden (1623-1635)
  6. The Austrian Peasants' Rebellion (1626)
  7. Letter of King Gustavus Adolphus (October 8, 1630)
  8. The Sack of Magdeburg (May 20, 1631)
  9. The Swedish Discipline (1632)

III. The Long War (1635-1648)
  10. Voyage of William Crowne (April-June 1636)
  11. Diary of Clara Staiger (Spring 1648)
  12. The Peace of Westphalia (October 24, 1648)

IV. Two Wartime Lives (1618-1648)
  13. A Soldier's Life in the Thirty Years War
  14. Hans Heberle's Zeytregister

For Further Reading

About the Author:

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