Europe's Tragedy

Jan 12, 2025 4:42 AM

Author:Peter H. Wilson

Europe's Tragedy

Winner of the Society for Military History Distinguished Book Award 2011

The horrific series of conflicts known as the Thirty Years War (1618-48) tore the heart out of Europe, killing perhaps a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to whole areas of Central Europe to such a degree that many towns and regions never recovered. All the major European powers apart from Russia were heavily involved and, while each country started out with rational war aims, the fighting rapidly spiralled out of control, with great battles giving way to marauding bands of starving soldiers spreading plague and murder. The war was both a religious and a political one and it was this tangle of motives that made it impossible to stop. Whether motivated by idealism or cynicism, everyone drawn into the conflict was destroyed by it. At its end a recognizably modern Europe had been created but at a terrible price.

Peter Wilson's book is a major work, the first new history of the war in a generation, and a fascinating, brilliantly written attempt to explain a compelling series of events. Wilson's great strength is in allowing the reader to understand the tragedy of mixed motives that allowed rulers to gamble their countries' future with such horrifying results. The principal actors in the drama (Wallenstein, Ferdinand II, Gustavus Adolphus, Richelieu) are all here, but so is the experience of the ordinary soldiers and civilians, desperately trying to stay alive under impossible circumstances.

Reviews

Peter Wilson is a brave man to undertake a new general survey of one of the most long-lasting, multi-dimensional and controversial wars of all time. It is a joy to report that, at least in this reviewer's opinion, Europe's Tragedy succeeds brilliantly ... His scholarship seems to me remarkable, his prose light and lovely, his judgments fair

—— Paul Kennedy , Sunday Times

An ambitious and accomplished account, abreast of modern scholarship, has been overdue, and EUROPE'S TRAGEDY supplies it all admirably

—— Blair Worden , Literary Review

A wonderfully comprehensive and detailed account

—— Tim Blanning , Daily Telegraph

Magisterial ... a wise, wide-seeking account, tenaciously researched

—— Lauro Martines , The Times Literary Supplement

A history of prodicious erudition ... a definitive account has been needed, and now Peter Wilson has provided it

—— Jeffrey Collins , Wall Street Journal

'A complex story of heroism and great courage'

—— Independent on Sunday

'Clear and effective...benefits from exhaustive research'

—— The Times Literary Supplement

'Very good...Preston has done an extraordinary amount of work, particularly in tracing the memories of survivors'

—— The Sunday Times

Carter's intelligent, entertainging and informative book folds dynastic and political narratives into a panoramic account of Europe's road to war

—— London Review of Books

That these three absurd men could ever have held the fate of Europe in their hands is a fact as hilarious as it is terrifying. I haven't enjoyed a historical biography this much since Lytton Strachey's Victoria

—— Zadie Smith

Miranda Carter writes with lusty humour, has a fresh clarifying intelligence, and a sharp eye for telling details. This is traditional narrative history with a 21st-century zing. A real corker of a book

—— History Today

A highly original way of looking at the years that led up to 1914

—— Antonia Fraser , Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year

Carter deftly interpolates history with psychobiography to provide a damning indictment of monarchy in all its forms

—— Will Self , New Statesmen Books of the Year

A depiction of bloated power and outsize personalities in which Carter picks apart the strutting absurdity of the last emperors on the eve of catastrophe

—— Financial Times Books of the Year

Takes what should have been a daunting subject and through sheer wit and narrative élan turns it into engaging drama. Carter has a notable gift for characterisation

—— Jonathan Coe , Guardian Books of the Year

Facts and figures say a great deal, but the most compelling accounts come from those who featured in the battle. Like any good author, Holland allows the participants to tell the story in their own words

—— The Good Book Guide

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