The second edition of this best-selling textbook is thoroughly updated to include expanded coverage of the late eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, and incorporates recent advances in gender history, global connections and cultural analysis. It features summaries, timelines, maps, illustrations and discussion questions to support the student. Enhanced online content and sections on sources and methodology give students the tools they need to study early modern European history. Leading historian Merry Wiesner-Hanks skilfully balances breadth and depth of coverage to create a strong narrative, paying particular attention to the global context of European developments. She integrates discussion of gender, class, regional and ethnic differences across the entirety of Europe and its overseas colonies as well as the economic, political, religious and cultural history of the period.
Review of the first edition: 'Merry Wiesner-Hanks' admirably up-to-date survey of early modern Europe succeeds in fulfilling a very challenging remit just about as well as one could wish. Its thematic structure, with a threaded narrative as required, represents the best way of imposing order and coherence on what can be an intractable mass of themes, problems, and divergent national histories. The difficult task of balancing breadth with depth is accomplished skilfully, and the text is particularly strong on gender and social relations. Students will undoubtedly appreciate its accessible unaffected style, as well as its range of well chosen (and often pleasingly unfamiliar) visual sources.' Peter Marshall, University of Warwick