The Peace of Westphalia - by Anuschka Tischer & Derek Croxton (Hardcover)

About the Book

A pivotal event in early modern history, the Congress of Westphalia gave birth to our contemporary international political system. While bringing peace to Germany after the Thirty Years' War, it created a new order in Europe and resolved longer lasting problems, including religious divisions and the relationship between emperor and estates. It was one of the longest and most complex, peace conferences in history. This book provides an essential reference for anyone wishing to sort out the complicated negotiations.

The significance of the European order established in 1648 extends far beyond the paragraphs of the treaty. The Congress alone--the first of its kind--became a standard for future diplomacy and negotiation. Even today, historians are finding new aspects of this extraordinarily complex Congress and Peace. With over 300 detailed entries, covering a wide variety of topics from the relevant people, places, and influential battles to critical concepts and technical terms, the book will be useful both to scholars and to students interested in the Peace of Westphalia, the Holy Roman Empire, or the events of the 1640s.

Book Synopsis

A pivotal event in early modern history, the Congress of Westphalia gave birth to our contemporary international political system. While bringing peace to Germany after the Thirty Years' War, it created a new order in Europe and resolved longer lasting problems, including religious divisions and the relationship between emperor and estates. It was one of the longest and most complex, peace conferences in history. This book provides an essential reference for anyone wishing to sort out the complicated negotiations.

The significance of the European order established in 1648 extends far beyond the paragraphs of the treaty. The Congress alone--the first of its kind--became a standard for future diplomacy and negotiation. Even today, historians are finding new aspects of this extraordinarily complex Congress and Peace. With over 300 detailed entries, covering a wide variety of topics from the relevant people, places, and influential battles to critical concepts and technical terms, the book will be useful both to scholars and to students interested in the Peace of Westphalia, the Holy Roman Empire, or the events of the 1640s.

Review Quotes

"[I]ntroduce(s)...scholars and a wider public to the arcana of the first and parhaps the most important diplomatical Congress in the European Modern History...I heartily recommend...The Peace of Westphalia: A Historical Dictionary."-Jean Berenger Professor Emeritus University of Paris, Sorbonne

"The Peace of Westphalia constituted a watershed in early modern history. It guided a number of political, territorial, and legal decisions that determined the internal politics of the Holy Roman Empire and the international landscape present a dictionary that offers valuable insight into the Peace of Westphalia even to those historians already familiar with the subject. The dictionary is a most valuable resource that illustrates its authors' enviable mastery of the topic. It is a fundamental study for the specialist and an introduction to European politics of the mid-seventeenth century for the student and interested layman--in short, a reference work that should not be absent from any general or specialist library."-Professor Heinz Duchhardt Institute of European History, Mainz

"This massive and scrupulously edited dictionary is fully worthy of the epoch-making events it treats, and will be an indispensable tool for students and researchers not only of this peace, but of the 17th Century and early modern European international history in general. It seems exhaustive in its coverage, is clear and authoritative on events, actors, and concepts alike, and provides helpful bibliographical references to supplement virtually every entry."-Paul W. Schroeder Professor of History and Political Science emeritus, University of Illinois Corresponding Fellow, Royal Historical Society

?[a]n indispensable aid to anglophone scholars.... Croxton and Tischer are to be commended....Their bibliography is up-to-date and, like the entries themselves, broadly international in scope, and includes not only the expected German, French, Spanish, and Dutch literature, but also the latest historiography in Danish, Swedish, Polish, and even Russian. This reviewer has tried, without success, to find and visable gaps in the book's coverage....Croxton and Tischer have provided students of early modern diplomatic history with a resource of immense utility. I would suggest that scholars delving into the primary sources on the peace- like the Acta Pacis Westphalicae seies-do so with this dictionary close at hand.?-The International History Review

?[b]elongs in all research libraries and in any library where early modern European history is of interest to it's users.?-ARBA Online

?The Peace of Westphallia: A Historical Dictionary is a useful reference work for researchers interested in the complex negotiations leading to the famous 1648 peace that ended the Thirty Years' War....This dictionary will be especially helpful for undergraduate and graduate students doing seventeenth-century European history research projects....These commentaries should help stimulate new research on the important religious and political settlement of 1648.?-The Sixteenth Century Journal

?Highly recommended for academic collections.?-CHOICE

?Highly recommended for academic collections.??CHOICE

"Ýa¨n indispensable aid to anglophone scholars.... Croxton and Tischer are to be commended....Their bibliography is up-to-date and, like the entries themselves, broadly international in scope, and includes not only the expected German, French, Spanish, and Dutch literature, but also the latest historiography in Danish, Swedish, Polish, and even Russian. This reviewer has tried, without success, to find and visable gaps in the book's coverage....Croxton and Tischer have provided students of early modern diplomatic history with a resource of immense utility. I would suggest that scholars delving into the primary sources on the peace- like the Acta Pacis Westphalicae seies-do so with this dictionary close at hand."-The International History Review

"Ýb¨elongs in all research libraries and in any library where early modern European history is of interest to it's users."-ARBA Online

"[b]elongs in all research libraries and in any library where early modern European history is of interest to it's users."-ARBA Online

"Highly recommended for academic collections."-CHOICE

"The Peace of Westphallia: A Historical Dictionary is a useful reference work for researchers interested in the complex negotiations leading to the famous 1648 peace that ended the Thirty Years' War....This dictionary will be especially helpful for undergraduate and graduate students doing seventeenth-century European history research projects....These commentaries should help stimulate new research on the important religious and political settlement of 1648."-The Sixteenth Century Journal

"[a]n indispensable aid to anglophone scholars.... Croxton and Tischer are to be commended....Their bibliography is up-to-date and, like the entries themselves, broadly international in scope, and includes not only the expected German, French, Spanish, and Dutch literature, but also the latest historiography in Danish, Swedish, Polish, and even Russian. This reviewer has tried, without success, to find and visable gaps in the book's coverage....Croxton and Tischer have provided students of early modern diplomatic history with a resource of immense utility. I would suggest that scholars delving into the primary sources on the peace- like the Acta Pacis Westphalicae seies-do so with this dictionary close at hand."-The International History Review

About the Author

DEREK CROXTON is an independent researcher and free-lance writer who received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. He is the author of several articles on military and diplomatic aspects of the Thirty Years' War and of the book Peacemaking in Early Modern Europe: Cardinal Mazarin and the Congress of Westphalia, 1643-1648 (1999).

ANUSCHKA TISCHER is a Robert Bosch Foundation Lecturer for History at the University of Riga in Latvia. A former research fellow for the edition series Acta Pacis Wesphalicae, she has published works on French diplomacy at the Congress of Westphalia and is currently doing work on the Franco-Spanish War of the 1650s.