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Europe in a Wider World, 1350-1650

Robin W. Winks and Lee Palmer Wandel

Publication Date - February 2003

ISBN: 9780195154481

272 pages
Paperback
6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches

Description

Between roughly 1350 and 1650, Europe underwent seismic changes in economics, politics, culture, and religion. Feudal monarchies were reconceived as abstract states. The new technology of the printing press transformed how information was disseminated, bringing texts to different social groups. Painters perfected the artifice of perspective for an increasingly commercial patronage, even as they themselves cultivated the value of their own "genius" through increasingly distinctive styles and visions. Reformers called into question 1500 years of tradition, splitting the One True Church into multiple churches. In the midst of all these changes, Europeans reached farther and farther out into a world they did not yet dominate, even as they lived uneasily under the shadow of an expansionist Islamic Mediterranean. Indeed, that wider world was inseparable from those seismic changes in the political and cultural landscape of Europe.
Europe in a Wider World, 1350-1650 offers a concise discussion of these events and the impact they had upon an evolving European society. It provides a clear outline of political events and a lively exploration of developments in the social and cultural landscape. Along with traditional themes, such as Protestantism, the book examines the changing roles of European women and the effects of environmental fluctuation on the history of the continent. By looking at these years as a whole, the authors attempt to restore interconnections among events that are often lost when the time period is viewed through the double categories of "The Renaissance" and "The Reformation." Illustrated with nine detailed maps and twenty-four images, and offering chapter summaries and a chronology to aid students, this text is ideal for undergraduate courses in early modern European history.

Table of Contents

    1. The Late Middle Ages in Eastern Europe
    The Crusades
    The Fall of Byzantium, 1081-1453
    The Ottoman Empire, 1453-1699
    Russia from the Thirteenth to the End of the Seventeenth Centuries
    Summary
    2. The Rise of the Nation
    A World Turned Upside Down
    The Emerging National Monarchies
    Particularism in Germany and Italy
    Summary
    3. The Renaissance
    A Money Economy
    Printing, Thought, and Literature
    Science and Religion
    The Fine Arts
    The Art of Daily Living
    Summary
    4. Exploration and Expansion
    Exploration and Expansion
    East by Sea to the Indies
    West by Sea to the Indies
    The North Atlantic Powers
    Russia
    The Impact of Expansion
    Summary
    5. The Age of Reformation
    Protestant Founders: Martin Luther, 1483-1546
    Protestant Founders: Zwingli, Calvin, and Others
    Protestant Beliefs and Practices
    The Catholic Reformation
    Protestantism and the Idea of Progress
    Summary
    6. The Great Powers in Conflict
    A Long Durée
    A Complexity of Wars
    The Catholic Monarchies: Spain and France
    France: Toward Absolutism, 1547-1588
    The Protestant States: Tudor England and the Dutch Republic
    The Holy Roman Empire and the Thirty Years' War
    Science and Religion
    Summary

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