Over time at least four meanings have been attributed to the term 'Baltic' - drawing on thirty years of extensive research, Foreword to the Past is the first modern introduction to the enigma of the Baltic origins and the self-identification of the Baltic people. The book is divided into three distinctive parts: the first part recounts the history of the Baltic peoples relying on archaeological sources; the second part provides an objective linguistic history and a description of the Baltic languages; the third part provides an original and fresh insight into mythology in the ancient history of the Baltic peoples.

A deadly continental struggle, the Thirty Years War devastated seventeenth-century Europe, killing nearly a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to towns and countryside alike. Peter Wilson offers the first new history in a generation of a horrifying conflict that transformed the map of the modern world. When defiant Bohemians tossed the Habsburg emperor’s envoys from the castle windows in Prague in 1618, the Holy Roman Empire struck back with a vengeance. Bohemia was ravaged by mercenary troops in the first battle of a conflagration that would engulf Europe from Spain to Sweden. The sweeping narrative encompasses dramatic events and unforgettable individuals—the sack of Magdeburg; the Dutch revolt; the Swedish militant king Gustavus Adolphus; the imperial generals, opportunistic Wallenstein and pious Tilly; and crafty diplomat Cardinal Richelieu. In a major reassessment, Wilson argues that religion was not the catalyst, but one element in a lethal stew of political, social, and dynastic forces that fed the conflict. By war’s end a recognizably modern Europe had been created, but at what price? The Thirty Years War condemned the Germans to two centuries of internal division and international impotence and became a benchmark of brutality for centuries. As late as the 1960s, Germans placed it ahead of both world wars and the Black Death as their country’s greatest disaster. An understanding of the Thirty Years War is essential to comprehending modern European history. Wilson’s masterful book will stand as the definitive account of this epic conflict. For a map of Central Europe in 1618, referenced on page XVI, please visit this book’s page on the Harvard University Press website.

This book provides an accessible study of the neglected but highly important series of wars fought for control of the Baltic and Northeastern Europe during the period 1558-1721. It is the first comprehensive history which considers the revolution in military strategy which took place in the battlefields of Eastern Europe. Robert Frost examines the impact of war on the very different social and political systems of Sweden, Denmark, Poland-Lithuania and Russia and he explains why it was Russia that emerged victorious from these wars. Based on extensive primary and secondary research (including much material that is unfamiliar in English) this book makes an important contribution to the debate on military change and political development in early modern Europe.

The Age of Wars of Religion saw navies, armies, armed merchant companies, and mercenaries battle one another and local potentates in many lands and along numerous shores. Wars of religion were fought in and between all the major religions and civilizations, from Europe to China, in Africa, and in the isolated Americas, mixing motives of knightly idealism, mercenary greed, and competing claims of divine sanction. This unparalleled work traces the extraordinary upheavals of the period in military technology, competing theologies, and civilizational change that were brought about by, or impinged upon, military conflict. It offers nearly 2,000 discrete but cross-referenced entries on cultural, military, religious and political history, as well as geography, biography, and military literature. Close to 2,000 entries offer detailed information on the major events, places, battles, figures, technologies, and ideas one must know to begin to make sense of the past six centuries of global conflicts. Though especially ferocious and intense, the Wars of Reformation and Counter-Reformation fought by Europeans from the 15th through 17th centuries were hardly unique in world or military history. The Byzantine Empire, bastion of Christian Orthodoxy, staggered to the tortuous end of its long conflict with the Ottoman Empire, the Great Power of the Sunni Muslim world. The Ottomans, in turn, were still engaged in an equally ancient intra-Muslim war, between Sunnis and Shi'ites. In India, the Hindu Rajputs and Marathas, and also the Sikhs, organized armies around religious communities to throw off the Muslim Yoke (Mughul Empire), and also fought against Christian invaders from Europe. As for the isolated Americas, ideas of divine kingship sustained by powerful priesthoods and religious warfare also prevailed, as exemplified by the Inca and Aztec empires.

The history of Sweden in the seventeenth century is perhaps one of the most remarkable political success stories of early modern Europe. Little more than a century after achieving independence from Denmark, Sweden - an impoverished and sparsely-populated state - had defeated all of its most fearsome enemies and was ranked amongst the great powers of Europe. In this book, which incorporates the latest research on the subject, Paul Douglas Lockhart: - Surveys the political, diplomatic, economic, social and cultural history of the country, from the beginnings of its career as an empire to its decline at the end of the seventeenth century - Examines the mechanisms that helped Sweden to achieve the status of a great power, and the reasons for its eventual downfall - Emphasises the interplay between social structure, constitutional development, and military necessity Clear and well-written, Lockhart's text is essential reading for all those with an interest in the fascinating history of early modern Sweden.

This volume deals with the entanglement of Scotland in the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), discussing both the diplomatic and military aspects of the conflict that led to Scottish involvement in the heart of the Holy Roman Empire. To the Scots, the war was linked to the fate of the Scottish princess, Elizabeth of Bohemia, rather than the politics of central Europe per se. In three sections, the 12 authors have illuminated the political processes that led to the participation of as many as 50,000 Scottish troops in the war. The official alliances of the Stuart regime, the independent diplomacy of the Scottish Parliament and the actions of numerous well placed individuals at various European courts are all shown to have had a bearing on this important episode of European history.