The Thirty Years War

Featured in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “My 10 Favorite Books”

An epic, vivid account of the Thirty Years War—one of the most complex and destructive eras of European history—by one of the greatest narrative historians of the 20th century.

“A book which is, and will long remain, the standard authority on the subject.” —Spectator

Europe in 1618 was riven between Protestants and Catholics, Bourbon and Hapsburg—as well as empires, kingdoms, and countless principalities. After angry Protestants tossed three representatives of the Holy Roman Empire out the window of the royal castle in Prague, world war spread from Bohemia with relentless abandon, drawing powers from Spain to Sweden, drawing powers from Spain to Sweden into a nightmarish world of famine, disease, and seemingly unstoppable destruction.

The Thirty Years War was a turning point in the making of modern Europe and the modern world: out of it came the system of nation-states that remains fundamental to international law. C.V. Wedgwood’s magisterial book is the only comprehensive account of the war in English, as well as a triumph of scholarship and literature.