From Oxenstierna to Charles XII


Book Description

Essays, by the doyen of historians of Sweden, on Oxenstierna, Charles X and Charles XII.




The 17th and 18th Centuries


Book Description

Each volume of the Dictionary of World Biography contains 250 entries on the lives of the individuals who shaped their times and left their mark on world history. This is not a who's who. Instead, each entry provides an in-depth essay on the life and career of the individual concerned. Essays commence with a quick reference section that provides basic facts on the individual's life and achievements. The extended biography places the life and works of the individual within an historical context, and the summary at the end of each essay provides a synopsis of the individual's place in history. All entries conclude with a fully annotated bibliography.




Russia in the Early Modern World


Book Description

A fundamental problem in studying early modern Russian history is determining Russia’s historical development in relationship to the rest of the world. The focus throughout this book is on the continuity of Russian policies during the early modern period (1450–1800) and that those policies coincided with those of other successful contemporary Eurasian polities. The continuities occurred in the midst of constant change, but neither one nor the other, continuities or changes alone, can account for Russia’s success. Instead, Russian rulers from Ivan III to Catherine II with their hub advisors managed to sustain a balance between the two. During the early modern period, these Russian rulers invited into the country foreign experts to facilitate the transfer of technology and know-how, mostly from Europe but also from Asia. In this respect, they were willing to look abroad for solutions to domestic problems. Russia looked westward for military weaponry and techniques at the same time it was expanding eastward into the Eurasian heartland. The ruling elite and by extension the entire ruling class worked in cooperation with the ruler to implement policies. The Church played an active role in supporting the government and in seeking to eliminate opposition to the government.




Wars of the Age of Louis XIV, 1650-1715


Book Description

Dominated by the ambitions of France's King Louis XIV, Europe in the years 1650-1715 witnessed a series of wars from which emerged many of the theories, practices, and technologies that characterize modern warfare. During this period, European armies evolved modern ideas of army organization and military leadership, as well as modern views of campaign strategy and battle tactics. As European soldiers and colonists moved into Asia, the Middle East, and the Americas, the practice or influence of their military techniques and ideas also affected wars fought in those places. In this volume's 1000 plus entries, an award-winning author of reference works on international relations and war describes and defines important events, technologies, and individuals from this seminal period of global military history.




The Northern Wars


Book Description

This book provides an accessible study of the neglected but highly important series of wars fought for control of the Baltic and Northeastern Europe during the period 1558-1721. It is the first comprehensive history which considers the revolution in military strategy which took place in the battlefields of Eastern Europe. Robert Frost examines the impact of war on the very different social and political systems of Sweden, Denmark, Poland-Lithuania and Russia and he explains why it was Russia that emerged victorious from these wars. Based on extensive primary and secondary research (including much material that is unfamiliar in English) this book makes an important contribution to the debate on military change and political development in early modern Europe.




The Birdman of Koshkonong


Book Description

Thure Kumlien was one of Wisconsin’s earliest Swedish settlers and an accomplished ornithologist, botanist, and naturalist in the mid-1800s, though his name is not well known today. He settled on the shore of Lake Koshkonong in 1843 and soon began sending bird specimens to museums and collectors in Europe and the eastern United States, including the Smithsonian. Later, he prepared natural history exhibits for the newly established University of Wisconsin and became the first curator and third employee of the new Milwaukee Public Museum. For all of his achievements, Kumlien never gained the widespread notoriety of Wisconsin naturalists John Muir, Increase Lapham, or Aldo Leopold. Kumlien did his work behind the scenes, content to spend his days in the marshes and swamps rather than in the public eye. He once wrote that he was not “cut out for pretensions and show in the world.” Yet, his detailed observations of Wisconsin’s natural world—including the impact of early agriculture on the environment—were hugely important to the fields of ornithology and botany. As this carefully researched and lovingly rendered biography proves, Thure Kumlien deserves to be remembered as one of Wisconsin’s most influential naturalists.




Scandinavia since 1500


Book Description

Though marked by certain geographical, linguistic, and cultural differences, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, and the Faroe Islands are united by a common bond and a shared history. This history comes richly to life in this up-to-date and thorough account of modern Scandinavia. Structuring his history along the lines of traditional European chronology-Renaissance, Early Modern, Modern, and Contemporary periods-Byron J. Nordstrom brings a distinctly twentieth-century perspective to his work. He shows how religions, political ideas, economic practices, intellectual movements, and technological innovations have come to Scandinavia from abroad only to be modified and recast in a uniquely Nordic character. Among the many topics he examines are Gustav II’s military reforms, Danish absolutism, the constitutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Scandinavian modern design, management techniques and shopfloor production strategies, and the welfare state. Surveying political, diplomatic, social, economic, and cultural aspects of the region’s history, Scandinavia since 1500 is a comprehensive yet nuanced portrait of this unique region.




The Story of War


Book Description

”O God we thank thee” was sung in the churches of France and Sweden after military victories in the seventeenth century. To celebrate Thanksgiving was a way of thanking God, but also a way for the rulers to legitimize the ever ongoing wars. For the inhabitants it was both an occasion for festivity and a way of getting information about what happened in the battlefield. Yet the image given was selective. Bloody defeats and uneventful everyday life was replaced by spectacular victories and royal glory. Even though the rituals in the two countries were similar in some ways, there were also substantial differences. The propaganda formulated a narrative about what war actually was, and what role the rulers and their subjects should play. In the crisis of 1709 this narrative was profoundly challenged. The book investigates how war events were communicated to the inhabitants of France and Sweden in the seventeenth century by the Church, and especially through days of thanksgiving (called Te Deum in France).




Gustavus v Wallenstein


Book Description

Explore the epic conflict and contrasting leadership styles of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and Albrecht von Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland, two titanic figures in the Thirty Years War whose strategic brilliance and dramatic deaths shaped the course of modern warfare, analyzed in vivid detail by the author. The conflict, personal rivalry and contrast in personality, generalship and command, between the two iconic commanders in the Thirty Years War, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden for the Protestant powers, and Albrecht von Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland. More than just commanders at the tactical level they were statesmen, military organizers and strategists on a continental scale. Both commanders represented the 17th-century ‘military revolution in action’. The writing is vivid, graphic and detailed, without overloading, and readers can feel ‘involved’ in the action, from strategic planning to battlefield tactics, and even the melee. Both generals are titanic figures come, and their respective deaths - Gustavus heroically in battle and Wallenstein, murdered with the Emperor’s compliance – were dramatic highpoints in the long war. This is no hagiography, and the author analyses the contrasting reputations of two of the greatest military figures in modern history and analyses mistakes as well their triumphs. Both commanders’ understanding of the role of the modern state and finance as vital factors in the military revolution and modern warfare. A major contrast was Gustavus’s constant search for the tactical and strategic initiative compared to Wallenstein’s caution and patience and development of counter-punch defensive tactics. Exceptional for the period, a young warrior like an ‘Alexander’, Gustavus excelled in inspired battlefield leadership even at huge risk. Despite his death at Lutzen in 1632, he and his steadfast chancellor Oxenstierna, had decisively defeated the Emperor’s attempt to subjugate the Empire and introduce the Catholic counter-reformation. Gustavus contributed hugely to the ending of Habsburg supremacy while advancing new concepts in modern war. His death ushered in his acolytes including generals Baner, Saxe-Weimar and Torstensson. Gustavus or Wallenstein, the greater of the two? The reader must judge but Napoleon included Gustavus in his list of ten greats with Julius Caesar, Hannibal Barca, and Alexander the Great.




Calvinism on the Frontier, 1600-1660


Book Description

This is the first book to examine one of Europe's largest Protestant communities in Hungary and Transylvania. It highlights the place of the Hungarian Reformed church in the international Calvinist world, and reveals the impact of Calvinism on Hungarian politics and society. Calvinism attracted strong support in Hungary and Transylvania, where one of the largest Reformed churches was established by the early seventeenth century. Understanding of this Hungarian Reformed church remains the most significant missing element in the analysis of European Calvinism. The Hungarian Reformed church survived on narrow ground between the Habsburgs and Turks, thanks to support from Transylvanias princes and local nobles. They worked with Reformed clergy to maintain contact with western co-religionists, to combat confessional rivals, to improve standards of education and to impose moral discipline. However, there were also tensions within the church over further reforms of public worship and church government, and over the impact of puritanism. This book examines the development of the Hungarian church within the international Calvinist community, and the impact of Calvinism on Hungarian politics and society.




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