The European World 1500–1800: An Introduction to Early Modern History

Citation

Kümin, B. (Ed.). (2023). The European World 1500–1800: An Introduction to Early Modern History (4th ed.). Routledge.

Chapter Summary

This is an edited textbook: thirty-eight chapters by a team of specialists, arranged in six parts, with an introduction at the start and a closing chapter titled "Europe in 1800" as the epilogue. The publisher describes it as a concise textbook for the centuries between the Renaissance and the French Revolution that presents early modern Europe as a dynamic period in its own right, not merely a transition. The fourth edition is stated to include two new chapters, on the environment and on food and drink cultures. Each chapter is by one to three named authors, and the publisher says the book is derived from an undergraduate course.

Part I: Starting Points (Chapters 1–2)

Chapter 1, "Introduction" (Beat Kümin), and Chapter 2, "Europe in 1500" (Humfrey Butters), frame the period and describe the continent at its starting point.

Part II: Society and Economy (Chapters 3–9)

The part covers "Environments" (John Morgan), "Gender and Family" (Bernard Capp), "Rural Society" (Steve Hindle), "Urban Society" and "Marginals and Deviants" (both Penny Roberts), "Sickness and Health" (Claudia Stein) and "The Early Modern Economy" (Steve Hindle). It is where the new environment chapter sits.

Part III: Religion (Chapters 10–15)

Chapter 10, "Church and People at the Close of the Middle Ages" (Beat Kümin and Peter Marshall), is followed by a prelude, "The Long Reformation", and three confessional chapters: "The Long Reformation: Lutheran" (Henry J. Cohn), "The Long Reformation: Reformed" (Penny Roberts) and "The Long Reformation: Catholic" (Anne Gerritsen, Kevin Gould and Peter Marshall). The part ends with "Religious Culture in Early Modern Europe" (Peter Marshall) and "Jews and Muslims" (Henry J. Cohn).

Part IV: The Wider World (Chapters 16–21)

Six chapters place Europe among other societies: "Beyond Europe c. 1500", "European Relations with the Ottoman World", "Expanding Horizons", "Europe Overseas", "The Global Exchange of Goods" and "Europe and the World, c. 1800". The authors include Anne Gerritsen, Anthony McFarlane, James E. Baldwin and Giorgio Riello.

Part V: Culture (Chapters 22–29)

Eight chapters cover "The Renaissance", "Arts and Society", "From Pen to Print – a Revolution in Communications?", "Food and Drink Cultures" (the other new chapter, by Rebecca Earle and Beat Kümin), "Popular Culture(s)", "Witchcraft and Magic", "The Scientific Revolution" and "Enlightenment".

Part VI: Politics (Chapters 30–37) and Epilogue (Chapter 38)

The part has two sections. The surveys are "The Theory and Practice of Politics and Government, 1500–1800", "Dynastic Politics, Religious Conflict and Reason of State c. 1500–1650" and "European Politics from the Peace of Westphalia to the French Revolution c. 1650–1800". The themes are "Courts and Centres", "Centre and Periphery", "The Impact of War", "Riot and Rebellion" and "Revolution: England and France". The epilogue, Chapter 38, is "Europe in 1800" (Humfrey Butters).

Key Concepts

Society and Religion (Parts II–III)

• Marginals and deviants: groups pushed to the edges of early modern communities, treated in Chapter 7.
• The Long Reformation: the book's frame for religious change, divided into Lutheran, Reformed and Catholic strands.
• Religious culture: the subject of Chapter 14, treated separately from the three confessional chapters.

Global and Cultural Change (Parts IV–V)

• Global exchange of goods: the trade links between Europe and the wider world, Chapter 20.
• Print and communication: the question whether printing amounted to a revolution, posed by the title of Chapter 24.
• Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment: the two intellectual movements given chapters of their own.

Politics (Part VI)

• Reason of state: a concept named in the title of Chapter 31.
• Centre and periphery: the relationship between central governments and outlying regions, Chapter 34.
• Riot and rebellion: popular resistance, treated in Chapter 36 just before the chapter on revolution in England and France.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Thematic breadth from specialists. The six-part structure gives societies, religion, global links, culture and politics equal standing, and each chapter is signed by an expert in the topic.
• Learning support. The publisher lists suggestions for seminar discussion and further reading, extracts from primary sources, maps and illustrations, a glossary of key terms, an index of persons, places and subjects, and a companion website.
• Reviewer endorsement. The publisher's page quotes Bart Lambert (University of York) on its portrayal of the period as a distinctive era, and Wolfgang Reinhard in the Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung calling it didactically well executed and easy to read without being simplistic. These are excerpts selected by the publisher.

Limitations

• Thematic structure, not a single narrative. Readers who want one continuous story will find chronology mainly in the political surveys (Chapters 30–32); most chapters follow a topic across the whole three centuries.
• Debates in a separate volume. The publisher points readers who want help with historiographical debates to a partnering volume, Interpreting Early Modern Europe, so this book is not the place for extended historiography.
• Length. At 38 chapters and about 518 pages, the book is long to read straight through in one term, so teachers and students need to select.

Where It Fits in the Course

Within the early modern history course, Kümin is a thematic textbook, in contrast with Wiesner-Hanks's Early Modern Europe, 1450–1789, a single-voice survey built around political, religious, economic, social and cultural change. The two can be read as alternatives, or Wiesner-Hanks's continuous narrative can be used first and Kümin for topics.

For religion, Kümin's Part III is an overview that sits alongside three more focused books: Marshall's The Reformation: A Very Short Introduction (a brief introduction), Eire's Reformations (a long narrative treating the Protestant, Catholic and radical reformations together) and Cameron's The European Reformation (a scholarly synthesis that weighs theology and social settings). Parker's Global Crisis is a study of one century, the seventeenth, on a world scale, and it relates to the global material in Kümin's Part IV.

How to Use This Book

The book suits undergraduates meeting early modern Europe for the first time. No earlier study is needed.

A practical plan:

• Begin with Chapters 1 and 2, then read the political surveys (Chapters 30–32) for a chronological outline.
• Choose a thematic route according to the course: society and economy (Part II), religion (Part III), the wider world (Part IV) or culture (Part V).
• Use the apparatus: work through the seminar suggestions, the primary-source extracts and the glossary rather than treating the chapters as text only.
• Move on to specialist books for the topics that matter most, for example Eire or Cameron for the Reformation, and Interpreting Early Modern Europe for historiography.