War in European History, 1660-1792: The Essential Bibliography Series

by Jeremy Black

The books in the Essential Bibliographies series include an essay by a noted scholar on the important historiographical issues and a pertinent bibliography for a particular period or theme in military history. They serve as research tools for librarians, researchers, and readers with a professional interest and as a starting point for pursuing further studies.This title, the second in the series by Jeremy Black ("War in European History, 1494 1660"), fills the relative neglect of the time period between the age of military revolution and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. In Europe, both Austria and Russia had driven back the Ottoman Turks, and the fate of their empire the Eastern Question became an important issue in European power politics. Within Europe, no power in Western or Central Europe, despite major efforts by France and Austria, respectively, could match Russia s rise to dominance in Eastern Europe. By contrast, Britain won the struggle for European maritime superiority, decisively so in 1759, and that led to its success over France in the battle over transoceanic colonies. The War of American Independence (1775 83) eventually ranged around the world as well. Although the British lost the struggle to control the thirteen colonies, which became the independent United States of America, the British survived what, from 1778, also became a war with France, Spain, the Dutch, and leading Indian powers with most of their empire retained. "War in European History, 1660 1792," covers it all.

122 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 2009

About the author

Jeremy Black is an English historian, who was formerly a professor of history at the University of Exeter. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of America and the West at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US.
Black is the author of over 180 books, principally but not exclusively on 18th-century British politics and international relations, and has been described by one commentator as "the most prolific historical scholar of our age". He has published on military and political history, including Warfare in the Western World, 1882–1975 (2001) and The World in the Twentieth Century (2002).

Reviews

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dr Jeremy Black, Professor of History at the University of Exeter in England, is known as a military and diplomatic historian. His numerous studies include European Warfare, 1494-1660 (2002), the bibliography War in European History, 1494-1660 (2006), European Warfare, 1660-1815 (1994), and European Warfare in a Global Context, 1660-1815 (2007). In War in European History, 1660-1792, Jeremy Black begins by stating that warfare in this period “suffers from relative historical neglect” (p.1). It is located between the age of the so-called “Military Revolution” and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Black, however, believes that this era is very important in military history, and that recent research has shown this to be true. As such, his analysis and historiographical essays (and bibliography) focus on recent specialist studies. This reviewer is disappointed that Black suggests that one should consult the footnotes and bibliographies of the studies that he mentions for the “earlier thinking” of conventional studies (p.1). Nevertheless, Black provides valuable essays on war in the world, war and the state, struggles for dominance on land and sea in the European theater as well as outside Europe, the nature of conflict, the question of limited and indecisive warfare during this era, as well as the American War of Independence. Black gives an author’s last name and year of publication when dropping a name in his essays, and the works are (most of the time) properly cited in the relevant sections of the thirty page bibliography at the back of the book. The essays are informative despite the lack of a true historiographical discussion. Black does make note of many areas needing further research. The bibliography is select, but it indicates the most current studies that touch upon Black’s essays.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 2 out of 5]

These are 80 pages designed to make one's eyes glaze over. I was hoping for a concise little historical overview; what I actually read amounted to a few points per chapter, linked together by a catalog of other works, which might as well have had big white arrows pointing to signs that say "read these books instead." There are a few author insights to be found in here, but they are so buried under what I can only describe as "stuff" that 80 pages feel like 800. Certainly not what I was expecting.