What Are You Currently Reading? 2009

[davidbfpo]

A long time since I read on this subject, IIRC Professor Geoffrey Parker wrote about this (I have an emailed a friend more familiar with this subject) and there was a series of books on European warfare, edited by Prof. Geoffrey Best IIRC. Fuchs might know more as his grasp of history is wider than mine and of course the wars centred in what was to become Germany.

Added after reply email:

Geoffrey Parker has written some very readable and yet scholarly books on 16th and 17th century European History which are in print - or at least widely available.

Geoffrey Elton (better know as GR Elton)'s 'Reformation Europe' in the Fontana paperback series of the 1960s/70s is still the best and clearest intro for the non-specialist.
That book takes you roughly just past the 1555 Augsburg treaty.

JH Elliot's 'Europe Divided' is the very clear, well-organised sequel to Elton in the same Fontana series; he's also a lively but reliable author best known for 'Imperial Spain'.
Europe Divided takes you to 1598, death of King Philip II of Spain.

The following volume in the Fontana series - I forget the title ('Europe in Crisis' ?) - is by Parker and takes you up to the Westphalia treaties of 1648. My special subject at college was the Revolt of the Netherlands, 1568 - 1648, about which he has written a lot e.g. 'The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road' (1970s).

I have a copy of Diarmid McCulloch's 'Reformation', the most recent book on the subject intended for a general readership; however, he assumes some prior knowledge.

One to borrow from libraries with rather more detail is the Reformation volume of the (New ?) Cambridge Modern History series; my edition has a chapter by Elton.