Results for "h.g. koenigsberger"

This bestselling, seminal book - a general survey of Europe in the era of 'Renaissance and Reformation' - was originally published in Denys Hay's famous Series, A General History of Europe. It looks at sixteenth-century Europe as a complex but interconnected whole, rather than as a mosaic of separate states. The authors explore its different aspects through the various political structures of the age - empires, monarchies, city-republics - and how they functioned and related to one another. A strength of the book remains the space it devotes to the growing importance of town-life in the sixteenth century, and to the economic background of political change.

Opening at the height of the Renaissance, the book chronicles the dawning of a new age on the European continent. Koenigsberger paints a detailed picture of the Reformation and its significance as increasingly powerful nations began to intrude on their subjects’ public and private lives. He gives account of the Counter-Reformation and the political and economic crisis that accompanied it, and an in-depth discussion of the age of Louis XIV and the balance of power in Europe. A full chapter addresses the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, and throughout attention is given to social, cultural and intellectual developments. The book concludes with a summary of the situation throughout Europe on the eve of the French Revolution, and the dramatic changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution and the beginnings of a consumer society.