The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern European History, 1350-1750: Volume I: Peoples and Place

Abstract

This Handbook provides a comprehensive introduction to early modern Europe in a global context. It presents some account of the development of the subject during the past half-century, but primarily offers an integrated survey of present knowledge, together with some suggestions as to how the field is developing. It is authoritative both on established topics in political history and the history of ideas, and also on newer fields such as the environment and the history of Europe’s developing cartography. Unusual for the attention given to the eastern half of the continent, it incorporates the Ottoman empire and Russia within ‘Europe’: exactly the perspective of contemporaries. Adopting a comparative approach, it demonstrates that ‘early modern’ is not simply a chronological label but possesses a substantive intellectual integrity. Volume 1 examines ‘Peoples and Place’, with sections on structural factors such as climate, demography, languages, literacy, printing, and the revolution in information, on social and economic developments, and on the nature of belief in the widest sense, including chapters on Orthodoxy, Judaism, and Islam as well as Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.