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Furies: War in Europe, 1450-1700
We think of the Renaissance as a shining era of human achievementa pinnacle of artistic genius and humanist brilliance, the time of Shakespeare, Michelangelo, and Montaigne. Yet it was also an age of constant, harrowing warfare. Armies, not philosophers, shaped the face of Europe as modern nation-states emerged from feudal society.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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About the author
Lauro Martines
24 books33 followersLauro Martines , former Professor of European History at the University of California, Los Angeles, is renowned for his books on the Italian Renaissance. The author of Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy, and most recently of Strong Words: Writing and Social Strain in the Italian Renaissance, he reviews for The Times Literary Supplement and lives in London with his wife, novelist Julia O'Faolain.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
April 2, 2024
This book isn’t a narrative history but is rather an examination of the social and economic impact of war in early modern Europe. In particular, it’s a book that examines the impact of soldiers upon civilian victims. The book is limited to Europe, so the references below to states, armies, etc are made in that context.
During this period states lacked the economic capacity to maintain standing armies. When war broke out they hired mercenaries, who were much the most effective troops of their era and who could come from any country. It was a feature of warfare in this period though, that states could not actually afford to pay for the soldiers they hired. The result was that an army was forced to live off the land and moved as a kind of a ravenous horde. An army of say, 20,000, was larger than most European towns of the period, and as the ragged and hungry soldiers moved through the countryside they consumed everything in their path and for miles out of the way in all directions. Villages were erased as houses and farm buildings were destroyed for firewood, and livestock and crops consumed. Moreover an army of 20,000 might have as many as 15,000 horses and pack animals, as well as a huge “tail” of camp followers, including craftsman of every description and the wives and children of the soldiers. It was really a mobile city, extracting everything from the countryside through which it moved. The unfortunate peasantry in the path of an army faced an unenviable fate. Cities might survive behind their protective walls, but woe betide the inhabitants of any city that fell to an assault. It was a longstanding rule of war that any city that fell after refusing a negotiated surrender would be subject to a sack, when the victorious soldiers would engage in an orgy of murder, rape, torture and plunder.
For the soldiers themselves, disease and famine were generally greater hazards than enemy troops. There were occasions when an army on campaign would completely disintegrate through a mixture of desertion and deaths from disease, the survivors scattering across the countryside in small bands. The book is strong on the logistics of warfare during this period.
The author comments that “The ability to conduct major warfare was the decisive factor in the making of the modern state. But this force, in turn, was predicated on the power to levy taxes and to command credit; that is, on the capacity to pay for war.” He argues that the need for early modern states to generate more revenue for war led to the creation of new administrative machinery for doing so, and therefore to the development of the tax-hungry modern state. The need for war finance was also closely linked to the development of modern banking. In 2008 we had banks being bailed out by governments, but in early modern times it was much more common for governments to be bailed out by banks. It was during this period that we saw the creation of concepts such as government bonds, deficit financing, governments defaulting on interest repayments, the “restructuring” of long term debt, and many other aspects of public finance that we still see today.
I found the author’s examination of the emergence of the modern state to be quite fascinating. For the most part, though, this is a book that sets kings and generals to one side, and considers the impact of war on ordinary people. It’s another book that will make the reader glad they did not live during the times and places featured.
During this period states lacked the economic capacity to maintain standing armies. When war broke out they hired mercenaries, who were much the most effective troops of their era and who could come from any country. It was a feature of warfare in this period though, that states could not actually afford to pay for the soldiers they hired. The result was that an army was forced to live off the land and moved as a kind of a ravenous horde. An army of say, 20,000, was larger than most European towns of the period, and as the ragged and hungry soldiers moved through the countryside they consumed everything in their path and for miles out of the way in all directions. Villages were erased as houses and farm buildings were destroyed for firewood, and livestock and crops consumed. Moreover an army of 20,000 might have as many as 15,000 horses and pack animals, as well as a huge “tail” of camp followers, including craftsman of every description and the wives and children of the soldiers. It was really a mobile city, extracting everything from the countryside through which it moved. The unfortunate peasantry in the path of an army faced an unenviable fate. Cities might survive behind their protective walls, but woe betide the inhabitants of any city that fell to an assault. It was a longstanding rule of war that any city that fell after refusing a negotiated surrender would be subject to a sack, when the victorious soldiers would engage in an orgy of murder, rape, torture and plunder.
For the soldiers themselves, disease and famine were generally greater hazards than enemy troops. There were occasions when an army on campaign would completely disintegrate through a mixture of desertion and deaths from disease, the survivors scattering across the countryside in small bands. The book is strong on the logistics of warfare during this period.
The author comments that “The ability to conduct major warfare was the decisive factor in the making of the modern state. But this force, in turn, was predicated on the power to levy taxes and to command credit; that is, on the capacity to pay for war.” He argues that the need for early modern states to generate more revenue for war led to the creation of new administrative machinery for doing so, and therefore to the development of the tax-hungry modern state. The need for war finance was also closely linked to the development of modern banking. In 2008 we had banks being bailed out by governments, but in early modern times it was much more common for governments to be bailed out by banks. It was during this period that we saw the creation of concepts such as government bonds, deficit financing, governments defaulting on interest repayments, the “restructuring” of long term debt, and many other aspects of public finance that we still see today.
I found the author’s examination of the emergence of the modern state to be quite fascinating. For the most part, though, this is a book that sets kings and generals to one side, and considers the impact of war on ordinary people. It’s another book that will make the reader glad they did not live during the times and places featured.
July 6, 2015
Martines is to be commended for deliberately breaking with the tradition of focusing on everything but the hardships and horrible impact of war and military machines. This is the first book I have ever read that focuses exclusively on the ills of armed conflict, both on the civilizations they ravage, and on the military members themselves.
But the book ultimately failed for me on two counts: Reader expectations and lack of a cohesive narrative. This book could have been more accurately titled: the ravages of war or the impact of war or even the hardship of war. I came to the text hoping to learn something about warfare in the late renaissance and early gunpowder age, and instead came away with only a catalogue of ills painted in the most general of terms. Soldiers were filthy and starving, often pressed into service, more apt to fall from disease than enemy arms. Students of military history already know this.
The lack of specificity or attempt at narrative monography turned the book into little more than a parade of stomach-turning anecdotes, having more in common with a film like Faces of Death than the kind of narrative history that enlightens and expands.
The work *is* cutting edge in its uncompromising attention to the evils of armed conflict, and if more statespeople and military leaders thought like Martines, there'd probably be a lot less fighting in the world. But while I commend him for that, I can't praise him for a great read, because Furies failed to provide that for me.
But the book ultimately failed for me on two counts: Reader expectations and lack of a cohesive narrative. This book could have been more accurately titled: the ravages of war or the impact of war or even the hardship of war. I came to the text hoping to learn something about warfare in the late renaissance and early gunpowder age, and instead came away with only a catalogue of ills painted in the most general of terms. Soldiers were filthy and starving, often pressed into service, more apt to fall from disease than enemy arms. Students of military history already know this.
The lack of specificity or attempt at narrative monography turned the book into little more than a parade of stomach-turning anecdotes, having more in common with a film like Faces of Death than the kind of narrative history that enlightens and expands.
The work *is* cutting edge in its uncompromising attention to the evils of armed conflict, and if more statespeople and military leaders thought like Martines, there'd probably be a lot less fighting in the world. But while I commend him for that, I can't praise him for a great read, because Furies failed to provide that for me.
September 29, 2014
A clear-eyed look at the way early modern states in Europe waged war in the late medieval period. Driven by the overweening ambitions of kings and princes and under the cover of deepening religious schisms, war was a hugely disorganized, wasteful, cruel and destructive affair. Weak tax bases, creaky logistics, rampant disease, and the "total war" mentality engendered by religious bigotry created a chaotic environment in which the outcome of any battlefield encounter was as much a result of chance, as it was of tactics.
But Martines demonstrates that the entire "complex of war" was not without its logic; all the individual parts depended on each other to create the horror of war. States did not maintain standing armies, and kings and princes relied on feudal vassals to provide the soldiery -- and these in turn were impressed into service from the lowest classes: peasants, ex-convicts, mercenaries, cutthroats and criminals. Their leaders did not give these soldiers any respect or consideration, regarding them as nothing more than cannon fodder. These soldiers went often unpaid and underfed, forcing them to live off the land. Armies ate their way through the land like locusts, preying on peasants just like them. The limitations on the food supply also imposed a limitation on the size of armies -- forty to fifty thousand was the maximum size that any army could sustain. With no pay coming in, soldiers were motivated by war booty, obtained from the sack of cities. So both soldiers and generals were keen on the sieges of cities -- if the cities refused to surrender, starvation ensued for both the besieged and the besiegers as the food supplies in the surrounding countryside soon ran out. To feed themselves, armies had to be mobile. The besieged resorted to eating household pets, vermin, grass and leaves, leather parts, and even cannibalism as defending cliques, often led by apocalyptic religious visions, refused to surrender and sieges dragged on. Massacres were common, and whole populations could be put to the sword and the women raped, for defying an invading army. Low nutrition and unsanitary conditions often led to epidemics, further weakening armies on the march. War-making was also expensive, and often put kings in thrall to bankers and moneylenders -- they in turn, knew that their loans may not be repaid reliably, and charged higher interest rates. Late medieval war-making laid the groundwork for the emergence of modern banking.
One image from Martines sticks in the mind. This is of an army on the march. A large army of 40,000 or 50,000 soldiers was often bigger than most urban centers in medieval Europe. For isolated villages, an army of this size would appear interminable as it streamed through their streets, first the outriders and scouts, then the mass of the army itself, soldiers silent and hollow-cheeked with hunger, diseased and harboring horrific festering wounds, starving pack animals and camp followers, the clank of weapons, the dust of marching feet.
Princes were nothing more than glorified warlords, and floating an army often required no more than an act of will -- once in the field, armies were expected to feed themselves and earn their pay from war booty. This explains how some countries like Sweden, hitherto impoverished and on the fringes of Europe, suddenly came to prominence. Gustavus Adolphus, the king of Sweden was a leading champion in the Protestant cause during the Thirty Years War, and led a lifetime of almost incessant warfare and briefly made his country one of the leading powers of Europe.
While reading the Furies, one cannot but think of books like Victor Hansen's Carnage and Culture, that argue that there is a superior Western way of war, that has allowed Europe to beat all its non-European adversaries over thousands of years. But Hanson's examples jump from early ones drawn from the Greco-Persian wars (Thermopylae, Salamis), Alexanders's campaigns (Gaugamela), and the Roman Republic (Cannae) to one isolated example in the middle ages (Poitiers, 732 AD), and then fast forwards eight centuries to the colonial and modern periods of European ascendancy (Tenochtitlan, Lepanto, Rorke's Drift, Midway, and Tet). We are asked to believe that (A) there is something identifiably "European" about the protagonists of these battles, (B) that this "Europeanness" remained invariant over 2500 years; and (C) that this "Western Way of War" succeeds because Western armies "often fight with and for a sense of legal freedom" (Hanson, 2001, p. 21), their armies are "products of civic militarism or constitutional governments" (p. 21), their soldiers are "citizens," "Western militaries put a high premium on individualism" (p. 22), and "soldiers ... commanders ... and generals all voiced their ideas with a freedom unknown" (p. 22) among their enemies. Hanson sees European warriors as rugged, freedom-loving, property-owning individualists, coming from law-abiding, constitutional societies, going to war against despotic, tyrannical, slavish non-European powers.
Martines's account of medieval European war shows how off the mark Hanson is. Even if the ideal of the free, propertied Athenian citizen-soldier (the hoplite) was true to begin with (and there is reason to suppose it was not since Greek city states were rigidly hierarchical slave-owning societies), there was no continuity in this tradition. The vision that Martines paints of the medieval European soldier -- unpaid, famished, diseased, brutalized -- evokes pity and bears no resemblance to the all-conquering European colonialist of a few centuries later. What led to this transformation? One can only presume that the incessant, horrific, all-consuming warfare of the late medieval centuries coarsened and brutalized societies, loosened moral restrictions on "total warfare" against civilian populations, competitively improved weapons, logistics and tactics, bred immunity to diseases, and created the industrial and financial apparatus of warfare that came in good stead when European armies encountered non-Western societies in the early modern period.
But Martines demonstrates that the entire "complex of war" was not without its logic; all the individual parts depended on each other to create the horror of war. States did not maintain standing armies, and kings and princes relied on feudal vassals to provide the soldiery -- and these in turn were impressed into service from the lowest classes: peasants, ex-convicts, mercenaries, cutthroats and criminals. Their leaders did not give these soldiers any respect or consideration, regarding them as nothing more than cannon fodder. These soldiers went often unpaid and underfed, forcing them to live off the land. Armies ate their way through the land like locusts, preying on peasants just like them. The limitations on the food supply also imposed a limitation on the size of armies -- forty to fifty thousand was the maximum size that any army could sustain. With no pay coming in, soldiers were motivated by war booty, obtained from the sack of cities. So both soldiers and generals were keen on the sieges of cities -- if the cities refused to surrender, starvation ensued for both the besieged and the besiegers as the food supplies in the surrounding countryside soon ran out. To feed themselves, armies had to be mobile. The besieged resorted to eating household pets, vermin, grass and leaves, leather parts, and even cannibalism as defending cliques, often led by apocalyptic religious visions, refused to surrender and sieges dragged on. Massacres were common, and whole populations could be put to the sword and the women raped, for defying an invading army. Low nutrition and unsanitary conditions often led to epidemics, further weakening armies on the march. War-making was also expensive, and often put kings in thrall to bankers and moneylenders -- they in turn, knew that their loans may not be repaid reliably, and charged higher interest rates. Late medieval war-making laid the groundwork for the emergence of modern banking.
One image from Martines sticks in the mind. This is of an army on the march. A large army of 40,000 or 50,000 soldiers was often bigger than most urban centers in medieval Europe. For isolated villages, an army of this size would appear interminable as it streamed through their streets, first the outriders and scouts, then the mass of the army itself, soldiers silent and hollow-cheeked with hunger, diseased and harboring horrific festering wounds, starving pack animals and camp followers, the clank of weapons, the dust of marching feet.
Princes were nothing more than glorified warlords, and floating an army often required no more than an act of will -- once in the field, armies were expected to feed themselves and earn their pay from war booty. This explains how some countries like Sweden, hitherto impoverished and on the fringes of Europe, suddenly came to prominence. Gustavus Adolphus, the king of Sweden was a leading champion in the Protestant cause during the Thirty Years War, and led a lifetime of almost incessant warfare and briefly made his country one of the leading powers of Europe.
While reading the Furies, one cannot but think of books like Victor Hansen's Carnage and Culture, that argue that there is a superior Western way of war, that has allowed Europe to beat all its non-European adversaries over thousands of years. But Hanson's examples jump from early ones drawn from the Greco-Persian wars (Thermopylae, Salamis), Alexanders's campaigns (Gaugamela), and the Roman Republic (Cannae) to one isolated example in the middle ages (Poitiers, 732 AD), and then fast forwards eight centuries to the colonial and modern periods of European ascendancy (Tenochtitlan, Lepanto, Rorke's Drift, Midway, and Tet). We are asked to believe that (A) there is something identifiably "European" about the protagonists of these battles, (B) that this "Europeanness" remained invariant over 2500 years; and (C) that this "Western Way of War" succeeds because Western armies "often fight with and for a sense of legal freedom" (Hanson, 2001, p. 21), their armies are "products of civic militarism or constitutional governments" (p. 21), their soldiers are "citizens," "Western militaries put a high premium on individualism" (p. 22), and "soldiers ... commanders ... and generals all voiced their ideas with a freedom unknown" (p. 22) among their enemies. Hanson sees European warriors as rugged, freedom-loving, property-owning individualists, coming from law-abiding, constitutional societies, going to war against despotic, tyrannical, slavish non-European powers.
Martines's account of medieval European war shows how off the mark Hanson is. Even if the ideal of the free, propertied Athenian citizen-soldier (the hoplite) was true to begin with (and there is reason to suppose it was not since Greek city states were rigidly hierarchical slave-owning societies), there was no continuity in this tradition. The vision that Martines paints of the medieval European soldier -- unpaid, famished, diseased, brutalized -- evokes pity and bears no resemblance to the all-conquering European colonialist of a few centuries later. What led to this transformation? One can only presume that the incessant, horrific, all-consuming warfare of the late medieval centuries coarsened and brutalized societies, loosened moral restrictions on "total warfare" against civilian populations, competitively improved weapons, logistics and tactics, bred immunity to diseases, and created the industrial and financial apparatus of warfare that came in good stead when European armies encountered non-Western societies in the early modern period.
February 10, 2013
This is a social history of war in Early Modern Europe, a time in which the continent was ravaged in succession by the Italian Wars, the French Wars of religion, the Eighty Years' War, the Thirty Years War, the Franco-Dutch War and the Nine Years' War, among others. However, the organization of the book is not chronological but thematic.
The focus is not in high-minded diplomacy or in battle tactics. In fact, the author maintains that too much emphasis has been traditionally given to these aspects of war. He notes that diplomacy is often just a flimsy facade over stark aggression and, interestingly, that none of the battles of the Thirty Years War was politically decisive.
Instead, the book centers on the plight of the common people. First the soldiers, which despite inflicting horrific suffering on civilians by way of plunder, requisitions and sackings, and acting as a vector for the spread of infection and plague, often were victims as well, pressed in service against their will and going hungry, ragged and unpaid. The book also touches on the often neglected camp followers which accompanied the soldiers.
Armies tended to "live off the land" by extorting food and resources from the inhabitants of those villages unlucky enough to be located in their path. Due to their massive size and the limited agricultural productivity of the time, armies ended up emptying the countryside of anything edible, causing widespread starvation. This focus on the high-level logistical challenges of maintaining an army, combined with the untold suffering on the ground (vividly rendered thanks to quotes from diaries and primary sources) makes for an interesting, if harrowing, read.
Attention is also paid to the role of finance in war. Going into war invariably meant going into debt. Rulers managed to gather enough money get a campaign going, but not enough to pay the soldiers all the way through. Which meant angry and unruly soldiers, which meant sackings like that of Antwerp in 1576 (the "Spanish Fury") or the one that afflicted Rome in 1527.
All in all, I found this to be a fascinating book.
The focus is not in high-minded diplomacy or in battle tactics. In fact, the author maintains that too much emphasis has been traditionally given to these aspects of war. He notes that diplomacy is often just a flimsy facade over stark aggression and, interestingly, that none of the battles of the Thirty Years War was politically decisive.
Instead, the book centers on the plight of the common people. First the soldiers, which despite inflicting horrific suffering on civilians by way of plunder, requisitions and sackings, and acting as a vector for the spread of infection and plague, often were victims as well, pressed in service against their will and going hungry, ragged and unpaid. The book also touches on the often neglected camp followers which accompanied the soldiers.
Armies tended to "live off the land" by extorting food and resources from the inhabitants of those villages unlucky enough to be located in their path. Due to their massive size and the limited agricultural productivity of the time, armies ended up emptying the countryside of anything edible, causing widespread starvation. This focus on the high-level logistical challenges of maintaining an army, combined with the untold suffering on the ground (vividly rendered thanks to quotes from diaries and primary sources) makes for an interesting, if harrowing, read.
Attention is also paid to the role of finance in war. Going into war invariably meant going into debt. Rulers managed to gather enough money get a campaign going, but not enough to pay the soldiers all the way through. Which meant angry and unruly soldiers, which meant sackings like that of Antwerp in 1576 (the "Spanish Fury") or the one that afflicted Rome in 1527.
All in all, I found this to be a fascinating book.
July 23, 2019
Creo que la razón última por la que el europeo ha dominado hasta el último rincón del globo no debería buscarse en la supuesta superioridad de una serie de valores religiosos, culturales o tecnológicos, sino que es mucho más sencillo; simplemente los europeos somos los mejores haciendo la guerra (y sin ningún escrúpulo además, por mucho que se intentara disimular con derechos o pretextos, en el fondo, el principio último siempre ha sido que quien tiene la fuerza, tiene la razón). Parafraseando a Adam Strange, quizá no sepamos mucho del nirvana o del camino del Tao.... pero somos muy hijos de puta. Y es que la dilatadísima experiencia de siglos dándonos de ostias se tiene que notar, han sido cientos de años masacrándonos casi sin parar en innumerables campañas a lo largo y ancho del continente, guerras de religión, de derechos dinásticos, de pura avaricia.... Cualquier excusa es buena para aplastar al enemigo, verle destrozado y escuchar el lamento de sus mujeres.
Así, Martines se pregunta, ¿cómo sería para la gente normal vivir bajo este estado de guerra permanente, acosados por los reclutadores, los impuestos, la obligación de alojar a los soldados, la rapiña, los asedios, las enfermedades, el hambre y todo tipo de desgracias? Guerras que en la práctica eran tanto contra el enemigo como contra el propio pueblo, que no sólo alimentaba los ejércitos con la leva forzosa, los impuestos o la obligación de alojar y alimentar a las tropas, sino que sufría las consecuencias violentas de los conflictos, los asedios, los saqueos, el hambre, la peste, y los soldados hambrientos que saqueaban pueblos arrasados por años de guerra.
Resulta un planteamiento de historia social muy interesante pero en el que Martines fracasa parcialmente. Primero por el tono excesivamente moralista, de "ceño fruncido" que a veces parece demasiado presa del pensamiento contemporáneo (no me acaban de convencer sus escasas explicaciones sobre la mentalidad de las élites de la época), segundo por la arrogancia de considerarse con insistencia el primer historiador en tratar el tema, tercero por la mala organización y estructura del texto, que tarda en tomar forma temática y que, en gran parte, resulta repetitivo en su catálogo de anécdotas (las narraciones de los tres grandes asedios y saqueos a ciudades europeas son prácticamente iguales y ya es complicado narrar una experiencia tan extrema como es un asedio y que te quede tan aburrido y sin gracia) y finalmente porque su gramática al escribir en inglés resulta, como mínimo, peculiar y complicada de seguir. Sin embargo otros aspectos me han resultado más interesantes, como explica la gigantesca corrupción en la guerra privatizada de mercenarios y la financiación y gestión económica de la guerra en los incipientes estados nación o el capítulo dedicado a toda esa recua de civiles que seguían a un ejército; las familias, los compradores de botín, los comerciantes, los prestamistas, las prostitutas, etc. Aspectos que aún siendo positivos no compensan el repetitivo catálogo de desgracias del que se compone la mayor parte del libro.
Así, Martines se pregunta, ¿cómo sería para la gente normal vivir bajo este estado de guerra permanente, acosados por los reclutadores, los impuestos, la obligación de alojar a los soldados, la rapiña, los asedios, las enfermedades, el hambre y todo tipo de desgracias? Guerras que en la práctica eran tanto contra el enemigo como contra el propio pueblo, que no sólo alimentaba los ejércitos con la leva forzosa, los impuestos o la obligación de alojar y alimentar a las tropas, sino que sufría las consecuencias violentas de los conflictos, los asedios, los saqueos, el hambre, la peste, y los soldados hambrientos que saqueaban pueblos arrasados por años de guerra.
Resulta un planteamiento de historia social muy interesante pero en el que Martines fracasa parcialmente. Primero por el tono excesivamente moralista, de "ceño fruncido" que a veces parece demasiado presa del pensamiento contemporáneo (no me acaban de convencer sus escasas explicaciones sobre la mentalidad de las élites de la época), segundo por la arrogancia de considerarse con insistencia el primer historiador en tratar el tema, tercero por la mala organización y estructura del texto, que tarda en tomar forma temática y que, en gran parte, resulta repetitivo en su catálogo de anécdotas (las narraciones de los tres grandes asedios y saqueos a ciudades europeas son prácticamente iguales y ya es complicado narrar una experiencia tan extrema como es un asedio y que te quede tan aburrido y sin gracia) y finalmente porque su gramática al escribir en inglés resulta, como mínimo, peculiar y complicada de seguir. Sin embargo otros aspectos me han resultado más interesantes, como explica la gigantesca corrupción en la guerra privatizada de mercenarios y la financiación y gestión económica de la guerra en los incipientes estados nación o el capítulo dedicado a toda esa recua de civiles que seguían a un ejército; las familias, los compradores de botín, los comerciantes, los prestamistas, las prostitutas, etc. Aspectos que aún siendo positivos no compensan el repetitivo catálogo de desgracias del que se compone la mayor parte del libro.
December 28, 2015
An oddly moralistic and incoherent book. It's more or less a broad-stoke denunciation of how brutal warfare in the early modern period could be (FWIW, there's no indication of why the dates 1450-1700 were chosen or what exactly those temporal boundaries signify.) The emphasis is on how savage armies could be to the civilian population in general and the peasantry in particular, and it also talks about how military service was likewise an imposition on the lower classes of the ruling elite. The book is pretty much a work of "advocacy" rather than analysis, and it works by picking out divergent examples of "bad behavior" from quite varied temporal and geographical areas. That is, it's a pastiche that cherry picks evidence and then makes broad generalizations. Now, I'm certainly not denying that war is an unpleasant experience for those caught up in it (who could deny that?), but I got the sense that the material discussed was chosen specifically for how it fits in with the accusatory tone of the book rather than for its representative nature. A large amount of the examples come from the Thirty Years War and the French Wars of Religion of the later 16th century. Surely, those religiously-inspired conflicts were particularly nasty, and it's striking how they dominate the discussion. If the entire period was as bad as the author makes out, why is there so little evidence from other conflicts?
The book has no real thesis. On p. xiv of the "prelude" (whatever that means), the author asks rhetorically: "What, then, to say about what is new or different in this book?" A page of text follows, and as far as I can tell, the question isn't answered and the words that follow don't give a particularly clear indication of what's in the book. So, if the author himself doesn't know the answer to that question (or at least can't express it), that doesn't bode well for the discussion that comes.
The following chapters are all devoted to a particular aspect of war. Most deal with how unpleasant war was to the non-ruling classes (e.g., "Sacking Cities", "Sieges"), but the final chapter ("The State: Emerging Leviathan") talks about the effects of having to finance armies on the expansion of the state in the early modern period. This chapter is entirely out of place given what the author says in his "Afterward." In an emotional denunciation of the activities of rulers in that period, the author indicates that the specious rationalizations used to justify warfare then are so much cant given the realities of war for the general populace:
That is the substance of the work in a nut shell. The author rejects traditional military history, which (he claims) is either a technical discussion of weapons and tactics or a (literally) bloodless subdiscipline within diplomatic history, which takes for granted the specious reasons used by the princes.
First, even if we grant that military history of the past was mostly interested in guns and generals, does that ipso facto make the study of such things illegitimate, as the author seems to suggest? Are the aims of the states that set those armies so emotionally denounced by the author in fact "meaningless"? By that standard, because the First and Second World Wars were far more horrific in terms of deaths and sufferings inflicted on the general populace, is it wrong to discuss, say, the development of tanks or the military strategy of Tsarist Russia? That's an absurd conclusion. It no doubt is important that the practical consequences of warfare on everyone involved should be always at the forefront of the historian's mind, but the idea that that suffering is the only thing that matters is ridiculous. Neither in the seventeenth nor in the twentieth century were armies mobilized and set in motion and the soldiers who fought in them motivated to act as they did for no reason at all. Furthermore, if one is interested in understanding why those armed conflicts arose, then the role played in that by the development of military hardware and its application is of crucial interest.
Note that in his attack on previous scholarship, the author speaks of the primacy of "moral questions" and putting military strategy used in furtherance of "reason of state" "on trial". That actually is what the author is up to. He wants to denounce the ruling classes of early modern Europe for being hypocrites who (ab)used the lower orders for their own benefit. Who would have imagined such a thing? Me, for one. I found the moralizing tone of this book tiresome, and the overall case "unproven". Does he think that war was, as Sherman supposedly said, "hell"? Yes. Does he show that that's all there was to it? No.
The author mainly works on Renaissance Italy, and I sometimes got the impression that he actually isn't all that comfortable with the broader European setting. For instance, he talks blandly of "Spain" and "Austria" (clearly distinguished from Germany) as actual states, which makes one think he thinking of the modern period instead. Indeed, in connection with the practice of tax farming (that is, the state takes money up front from private individuals or groups, who then collect public taxes): "Yet it [the state] farmed taxes out to financiers, thus putting one of the chief functions of the modern state, the collection of taxes, into private hands. Here a crucial aspect of administration was alienated…" (p. 237, emphasis added). First off, note that the early modern state is being criticized for not fulfilling one of the supposed functions of the "modern" state. So, we're now condemning the past for not living up to our modern conceptions of how the world is supposed to work? That's silly enough in its own right, and is a judgemental stance that is completely unhistorical. Somebody who actually thinks that for a state to be a state in any historical period, it has to collect its own taxes has no business talking about the distant past. It was a perfectly common practice throughout antiquity and the middle ages into the early modern world (look at, for instance, the publicans of the Roman Republic). Now, this example is perhaps of no great consequence in its own right, but it does reflect how the author doesn't really have much sympathy for how the past actually worked in its own right. He just wants to point his modern finger at the people of the past and shout "You're bad!" Well, and he's tiresome in being representative of the modern strain of thinking that assumes that the way we do things today is self-evidently right, and everybody in the past was wicked or stupid for thinking differently.
The book has no real thesis. On p. xiv of the "prelude" (whatever that means), the author asks rhetorically: "What, then, to say about what is new or different in this book?" A page of text follows, and as far as I can tell, the question isn't answered and the words that follow don't give a particularly clear indication of what's in the book. So, if the author himself doesn't know the answer to that question (or at least can't express it), that doesn't bode well for the discussion that comes.
The following chapters are all devoted to a particular aspect of war. Most deal with how unpleasant war was to the non-ruling classes (e.g., "Sacking Cities", "Sieges"), but the final chapter ("The State: Emerging Leviathan") talks about the effects of having to finance armies on the expansion of the state in the early modern period. This chapter is entirely out of place given what the author says in his "Afterward." In an emotional denunciation of the activities of rulers in that period, the author indicates that the specious rationalizations used to justify warfare then are so much cant given the realities of war for the general populace:
In the middle of all this woe [i.e., the unpleasantries discussed in the book], for the historian as for the villager, the skills of generals lose all meaning. The knowledge of "weapons systems" fades into irrelevance. Dynastic rights turn into legal abstractions. The "honor" of princes becomes palaver. "Reason of state"… is drawn out and isolated, now fit to be put on trial. In short, from the moment we cut the social history of war away from the bonds of politics and diplomacy, down come all barriers against the raising of moral questions.
That is the substance of the work in a nut shell. The author rejects traditional military history, which (he claims) is either a technical discussion of weapons and tactics or a (literally) bloodless subdiscipline within diplomatic history, which takes for granted the specious reasons used by the princes.
First, even if we grant that military history of the past was mostly interested in guns and generals, does that ipso facto make the study of such things illegitimate, as the author seems to suggest? Are the aims of the states that set those armies so emotionally denounced by the author in fact "meaningless"? By that standard, because the First and Second World Wars were far more horrific in terms of deaths and sufferings inflicted on the general populace, is it wrong to discuss, say, the development of tanks or the military strategy of Tsarist Russia? That's an absurd conclusion. It no doubt is important that the practical consequences of warfare on everyone involved should be always at the forefront of the historian's mind, but the idea that that suffering is the only thing that matters is ridiculous. Neither in the seventeenth nor in the twentieth century were armies mobilized and set in motion and the soldiers who fought in them motivated to act as they did for no reason at all. Furthermore, if one is interested in understanding why those armed conflicts arose, then the role played in that by the development of military hardware and its application is of crucial interest.
Note that in his attack on previous scholarship, the author speaks of the primacy of "moral questions" and putting military strategy used in furtherance of "reason of state" "on trial". That actually is what the author is up to. He wants to denounce the ruling classes of early modern Europe for being hypocrites who (ab)used the lower orders for their own benefit. Who would have imagined such a thing? Me, for one. I found the moralizing tone of this book tiresome, and the overall case "unproven". Does he think that war was, as Sherman supposedly said, "hell"? Yes. Does he show that that's all there was to it? No.
The author mainly works on Renaissance Italy, and I sometimes got the impression that he actually isn't all that comfortable with the broader European setting. For instance, he talks blandly of "Spain" and "Austria" (clearly distinguished from Germany) as actual states, which makes one think he thinking of the modern period instead. Indeed, in connection with the practice of tax farming (that is, the state takes money up front from private individuals or groups, who then collect public taxes): "Yet it [the state] farmed taxes out to financiers, thus putting one of the chief functions of the modern state, the collection of taxes, into private hands. Here a crucial aspect of administration was alienated…" (p. 237, emphasis added). First off, note that the early modern state is being criticized for not fulfilling one of the supposed functions of the "modern" state. So, we're now condemning the past for not living up to our modern conceptions of how the world is supposed to work? That's silly enough in its own right, and is a judgemental stance that is completely unhistorical. Somebody who actually thinks that for a state to be a state in any historical period, it has to collect its own taxes has no business talking about the distant past. It was a perfectly common practice throughout antiquity and the middle ages into the early modern world (look at, for instance, the publicans of the Roman Republic). Now, this example is perhaps of no great consequence in its own right, but it does reflect how the author doesn't really have much sympathy for how the past actually worked in its own right. He just wants to point his modern finger at the people of the past and shout "You're bad!" Well, and he's tiresome in being representative of the modern strain of thinking that assumes that the way we do things today is self-evidently right, and everybody in the past was wicked or stupid for thinking differently.
September 9, 2019
13 de maig de 2018
Guerra i societat en l’època moderna
Ressenya: Un tiempo de guerra. Una historia alternativa de Europa 1450-1700 de Lauro Martines
En aquest llibre l’historiador Lauro Martines presenta una visió alternativa de la història de la guerra a Europa, tal i com indica el seu subtítol. La intenció principal és desviar la mirada més tradicional i centrar-se en una perspectiva més social, fins i tot, es podria dir que és un intent de fer un exercici d’història des de baix. L’autor vol capturar l’experiència de la guerra a través dels que en patien les conseqüències més directes, és a dir, les classes populars, on inclourà tant camperols, com la gent de ciutat, els propis soldats o la corrua de personatges que seguien els exèrcits per tot el vell continent. Però abans d’entrar de ple en el contingut de l’obra i les qüestions que planteja, seria bo traçar la trajectòria de l’autor i veure com aquest llibre encaixa en tota la seva producció bibliogràfica.
Lauro Martines és originari de Chicago i va ser professor d’història europea a la Universitat de California. Els seus treballs s’han centrat en l’època del Renaixement i en el món italià en especial, convertint-lo en un autor de certa rellevància en el seu camp d’estudi. Entre les seves obres més destacables hi ha Fire in the city: Savonarola and the struggle for renaissance Florence, April Blood: Florence and the plot against the medici o Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy. El llibre que ocupa aquesta ressenya escapa una mica aquest enquadrament, ja que s’expandeix cronològica i geogràficament al tractar la guerra a tota Europa al llarg de quasi bé tota l’època moderna i, a més a més, planteja un enfocament i una metodologia diferents als que l’autor sol recorre.
Pel que fa al contingut de l’obra, Martines opta per encarar la seva tasca a través d’una estructura de trencaclosques. Desconstrueix el fenomen de la guerra a l‘Europa moderna i l’aborda a través de l’estudi dels diferents elements que el composen. Utilitzarà constantment exemples i anècdotes per cada cas d’estudi. Això ja es pot veure a les primeres pàgines del llibre, on estableix un quadre general de la realitat bèl·lica presentant una multitud de casos concrets, com l’enfrontament de Florencia contra Pisa el 1406 o les
memòries de l’oficial Blaise de Monluc. Aquest model serà les vies sobre les que circula tota l’obra.
Un cop establert el seu plantejament, Martines estudia una gran varietat d’aspectes del món militar. Comença parlant dels que es poden considerar els grans protagonistes, és a dir, els soldats, dels quals relata com se’ls percebia com la pitjor casta de la societat. Aquí construeix la imatge terrible del que eren els exèrcits, als que la població veia com acumulacions de malalties, gana, maltractament per part dels oficials, ferides greus i mort. En relació a aquest aspecte, Martines també explica els sistemes de reclutament i acantonament, que molts cops acabaven sent forçosos i generaven una gran quantitat de conflictes i tensions, com la revolta que hi va haver a Catalunya el 1640. També narra com els reclutadors veien l’exèrcit com una forma de fer negoci i com els soldats quasi bé mai acabaven rebent les seves pagues, fet que, altra vegada, tornava a desencadenar motins i rebel·lions.
Seguidament entra en els temes dels saquejos i setges de ciutats, els quals van donar lloc als episodis més sagnants i cruents de la guerra. Això ho explicarà través dels exemples dels saquejos de Brescia, Anvers i Magdeburg i els setges de Siena, Sancerre, París i Augsburg. Martines mostrarà els horrors pels que passaran les víctimes, que veuran les seves ciutats incendiades, desballestades i, fins i tot, al límit de la desaparició. Explica com els morts s’acumulaven als carrers i com la fam s’apoderava de les ciutats, donant moments d’autèntica desesperació en els que es van menjar sopes de teles de cuir, del paper de llibres o dels ossos dels morts. També relata les ocasions més extremes on es van arribar a donar casos de canibalisme. Un altre aspecte era el de les boques inútils, tots aquells ciutadans que no es consideraven essencials per a les ciutats i als que es feien fora un cop s’havien acabat les racions.
Les atrocitats també venien de la soldadesca, que un cop entrava a la ciutat cometia tota mena de crims contra la població i la saquejava durant dies, en la recerca del preuat botí. Respecte als atacants, també remarca com acabaven amb els recursos de tota la zona que rodejava la urbs, que deixaven completament erma.
Per altra banda, Martines també dedica un episodi al món rural, el qual no rebia un tracte diferent al de les ciutats. Quan un exèrcit passava pels petits pobles camperols, aquests veien com els seus recursos desapareixien i es quedaven sense aliments. Les provisions
acumulades, els animals i les llavors per a la següent collita eren requisats, deixant a la població en una situació d’extrema pobresa.
La pròpia figura de l’exèrcit té el seu episodi dedicat, en el que es mostra com la situació allà era igual o encara pitjor. Martines il·lustra com el soldat ras sempre mancava de l’aprovisionament necessari i com els reis els enviaven a fer la guerra comptant en que ja adquiririen el necessari de les zones conquerides. Al caos de la intendència afegeix el paper clau que tenien les dones, nens i altres individus que seguien a cada formació militar en la seva campanya. Aquest grup, força gran, es va mostrar totalment indispensable, ja que molts cops ajudava a l’aprovisionament i també mantenia la moral alta de la soldadesca.
L’autor mostra com els exèrcits eren verdaderes ciutats ambulants que s’anaven movent per tot el continent i ho anaven desolant tot al seu pas.
Arribant al final, Martines dedica un capítol a parlar del paper de la religió a la guerra, que molts cops servia com a un motor moral i justificador del que s’estava fent, ja que d’alguna forma s’havia de donar algun sentit a la misèria per la que passava la població al llarg d’un conflicte.
A l’últim episodi l’autor es centra en el finançament de la guerra, que suposava un cost enorme per qualsevol Estat que si vulgues involucrar. Aquí Martines s’acobla a les teories més recents de la historiografia moderna i parla de l’establiment de l’Estat modern a través de la recaptació d’impostos i la instauració d’una administració, la qual serà essencial per poder armar els grans exèrcits necessaris per a les campanyes. Bàsicament, es suma a com a un defensor més de l’anomenat Estat fiscal-militar, al que fa menció directa i el qual s’enfronta a les hipòtesis més tradicionals de l’absolutisme.
Veient el contingut del llibre, s’ha de dir que a nivell de nous coneixements no fa una gran aportació, ja que tot el que s’explica es prou conegut i està treballat en les diferents obres que tracten el període, les quals l’autor cita amb profusió. El que és més rellevant és l’enfocament que decideix prendre l’autor, el qual ofereix una forma d’afrontar la qüestió de la guerra des d’un angle diferent, que allunya grans polítiques i estadístiques i apropa la realitat de la gent corrent, que al cap i a la fi no deixa de ser la víctima del procés històric.
Ara bé, l’obra de Martines planteja un seguit de problemes de certa gravetat. En primer lloc, al final del capítol introductori l’autor fa una crítica als historiadors i diu que no saben com treballar el sofriment de la guerra i que només l’enfoquen des d’un punt de vista tècnic, allunyat de la gent i el factor humà. Això ja genera certa reticència, ja que el fet de que la resta d’historiadors no tinguin interès en tractar el tema, no és motiu per desestimar la seva obra. A part d’aquesta crítica innecessària, també cal dir que una aportació innovadora no ha d’implicar desestimar les anteriors, moltes vegades simplement són l’ampliació del coneixement sobre un camp d’estudi.
Dintre d’aquest mateix fragment, l’autor escriu una sentència final que demostra de forma molt clara un posicionament força subjectiu respecte la història i que fa trontollar el que vulgui plantejar a continuació. La frase diu: “En su anàlisis, los historiadores también deberían tomar una postura determinada cuando se abordan cuestiones relativas al bien y al mal”. Aquí el que està implicant és que els historiadors haurien d’aplicar judicis de valor sobre tot el que estan estudiant, fet que presenta bastants problemes. La feina de l’investigador és reconstruir la realitat de la forma més fidedigne possible, jutjar-la és una tasca que hauria de venir desprès i que no té perquè ser el seu objectiu principal o un objectiu en si mateix. Aquesta postura provocarà que l’obra estigui marcada per una clara pinzellada de moralisme que no aporta res al debat historiogràfic.
Al final del setè capítol hi torna a haver una menció a la implicació ètica que han de tenir historiadors i també parla de “l’objectivitat fantasmagòrica” que persegueixen. Aquesta insistència dilueix en força mesura el propòsit del llibre, que acaba sent una col·lecció d’exemples de violència extrema i de situacions de patiment desesperat en diferents conflictes. Normalment es veu com tria els casos més terribles, com poden ser els que acaben en canibalisme, per tal de reforçar la narrativa moral que planteja al principi de l’obra. Amb tot, es va veient la configuració d’un biaix, amb el que l’autor compromet la representació d’una realitat històrica a les seva ètica personal. A més a més, això moltes vegades es tradueix en generalitzacions a partir dels exemples concrets, les quals utilitza per aplicar la seva moral a tota la societat europea de l’època moderna.
Pel que fa al recull dels passatges, l’autor compleix la seva feina i el retrat que crea és prou acurat i versemblant, a més està recolzat per les fonts i cites dels grans experts en el camp de la història militar com Geoffrey Parker, Jeremy Black o David Parrot, entre molts d’altres. El punt, però, és que no és res més que això: un recull d’històries. Presentar una corrua d’esdeveniments amb el simple objectiu de jutjar-ne la seva ètica i moral no és una
gran aportació. Martines es queda en aquest nivell tant superficial i profunditza molt poc. Al llarg del llibre s’aixequen una multitud de preguntes sobre el que s’està explicant i mai se’ls hi dona cap mena de resposta. L’autor no aborda la possibilitat de fer un anàlisi de la violència, els seus orígens, quanta part era fruit de la pròpia societat, quines eren les motivacions que hi havia al darrere, ni les actituds que prenien els que n’eren víctimes. Tampoc es fan valoracions comparatives entre les diferents zones i moments on es donaven els diferents episodis d’horror, fet que aportaria més detall i ajudaria a evitar les generalitzacions mencionades.
Finalment, el que queda és un llibre que descriu els detalls més escabrosos de la guerra amb l’objectiu de mostrar-ne el sofriment i les seves víctimes. Però aquestaa mirada cap a baix només es queda en això: una mirada, ja que en cap moment es fa un estudi en profunditat i analític.
Lauro Martines critica al món acadèmic per tractar la història de la guerra des del punt de vista de l’alta política, l’estratègia i les xifres, deixant a les víctimes de banda. Però en el seu intent d’acostar-s’hi no fa res més que explicar-ne les desgràcies més cridaneres, en lloc de donar-los les explicacions i la dedicació acadèmica que realment es mereixen.
Guerra i societat en l’època moderna
Ressenya: Un tiempo de guerra. Una historia alternativa de Europa 1450-1700 de Lauro Martines
En aquest llibre l’historiador Lauro Martines presenta una visió alternativa de la història de la guerra a Europa, tal i com indica el seu subtítol. La intenció principal és desviar la mirada més tradicional i centrar-se en una perspectiva més social, fins i tot, es podria dir que és un intent de fer un exercici d’història des de baix. L’autor vol capturar l’experiència de la guerra a través dels que en patien les conseqüències més directes, és a dir, les classes populars, on inclourà tant camperols, com la gent de ciutat, els propis soldats o la corrua de personatges que seguien els exèrcits per tot el vell continent. Però abans d’entrar de ple en el contingut de l’obra i les qüestions que planteja, seria bo traçar la trajectòria de l’autor i veure com aquest llibre encaixa en tota la seva producció bibliogràfica.
Lauro Martines és originari de Chicago i va ser professor d’història europea a la Universitat de California. Els seus treballs s’han centrat en l’època del Renaixement i en el món italià en especial, convertint-lo en un autor de certa rellevància en el seu camp d’estudi. Entre les seves obres més destacables hi ha Fire in the city: Savonarola and the struggle for renaissance Florence, April Blood: Florence and the plot against the medici o Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy. El llibre que ocupa aquesta ressenya escapa una mica aquest enquadrament, ja que s’expandeix cronològica i geogràficament al tractar la guerra a tota Europa al llarg de quasi bé tota l’època moderna i, a més a més, planteja un enfocament i una metodologia diferents als que l’autor sol recorre.
Pel que fa al contingut de l’obra, Martines opta per encarar la seva tasca a través d’una estructura de trencaclosques. Desconstrueix el fenomen de la guerra a l‘Europa moderna i l’aborda a través de l’estudi dels diferents elements que el composen. Utilitzarà constantment exemples i anècdotes per cada cas d’estudi. Això ja es pot veure a les primeres pàgines del llibre, on estableix un quadre general de la realitat bèl·lica presentant una multitud de casos concrets, com l’enfrontament de Florencia contra Pisa el 1406 o les
memòries de l’oficial Blaise de Monluc. Aquest model serà les vies sobre les que circula tota l’obra.
Un cop establert el seu plantejament, Martines estudia una gran varietat d’aspectes del món militar. Comença parlant dels que es poden considerar els grans protagonistes, és a dir, els soldats, dels quals relata com se’ls percebia com la pitjor casta de la societat. Aquí construeix la imatge terrible del que eren els exèrcits, als que la població veia com acumulacions de malalties, gana, maltractament per part dels oficials, ferides greus i mort. En relació a aquest aspecte, Martines també explica els sistemes de reclutament i acantonament, que molts cops acabaven sent forçosos i generaven una gran quantitat de conflictes i tensions, com la revolta que hi va haver a Catalunya el 1640. També narra com els reclutadors veien l’exèrcit com una forma de fer negoci i com els soldats quasi bé mai acabaven rebent les seves pagues, fet que, altra vegada, tornava a desencadenar motins i rebel·lions.
Seguidament entra en els temes dels saquejos i setges de ciutats, els quals van donar lloc als episodis més sagnants i cruents de la guerra. Això ho explicarà través dels exemples dels saquejos de Brescia, Anvers i Magdeburg i els setges de Siena, Sancerre, París i Augsburg. Martines mostrarà els horrors pels que passaran les víctimes, que veuran les seves ciutats incendiades, desballestades i, fins i tot, al límit de la desaparició. Explica com els morts s’acumulaven als carrers i com la fam s’apoderava de les ciutats, donant moments d’autèntica desesperació en els que es van menjar sopes de teles de cuir, del paper de llibres o dels ossos dels morts. També relata les ocasions més extremes on es van arribar a donar casos de canibalisme. Un altre aspecte era el de les boques inútils, tots aquells ciutadans que no es consideraven essencials per a les ciutats i als que es feien fora un cop s’havien acabat les racions.
Les atrocitats també venien de la soldadesca, que un cop entrava a la ciutat cometia tota mena de crims contra la població i la saquejava durant dies, en la recerca del preuat botí. Respecte als atacants, també remarca com acabaven amb els recursos de tota la zona que rodejava la urbs, que deixaven completament erma.
Per altra banda, Martines també dedica un episodi al món rural, el qual no rebia un tracte diferent al de les ciutats. Quan un exèrcit passava pels petits pobles camperols, aquests veien com els seus recursos desapareixien i es quedaven sense aliments. Les provisions
acumulades, els animals i les llavors per a la següent collita eren requisats, deixant a la població en una situació d’extrema pobresa.
La pròpia figura de l’exèrcit té el seu episodi dedicat, en el que es mostra com la situació allà era igual o encara pitjor. Martines il·lustra com el soldat ras sempre mancava de l’aprovisionament necessari i com els reis els enviaven a fer la guerra comptant en que ja adquiririen el necessari de les zones conquerides. Al caos de la intendència afegeix el paper clau que tenien les dones, nens i altres individus que seguien a cada formació militar en la seva campanya. Aquest grup, força gran, es va mostrar totalment indispensable, ja que molts cops ajudava a l’aprovisionament i també mantenia la moral alta de la soldadesca.
L’autor mostra com els exèrcits eren verdaderes ciutats ambulants que s’anaven movent per tot el continent i ho anaven desolant tot al seu pas.
Arribant al final, Martines dedica un capítol a parlar del paper de la religió a la guerra, que molts cops servia com a un motor moral i justificador del que s’estava fent, ja que d’alguna forma s’havia de donar algun sentit a la misèria per la que passava la població al llarg d’un conflicte.
A l’últim episodi l’autor es centra en el finançament de la guerra, que suposava un cost enorme per qualsevol Estat que si vulgues involucrar. Aquí Martines s’acobla a les teories més recents de la historiografia moderna i parla de l’establiment de l’Estat modern a través de la recaptació d’impostos i la instauració d’una administració, la qual serà essencial per poder armar els grans exèrcits necessaris per a les campanyes. Bàsicament, es suma a com a un defensor més de l’anomenat Estat fiscal-militar, al que fa menció directa i el qual s’enfronta a les hipòtesis més tradicionals de l’absolutisme.
Veient el contingut del llibre, s’ha de dir que a nivell de nous coneixements no fa una gran aportació, ja que tot el que s’explica es prou conegut i està treballat en les diferents obres que tracten el període, les quals l’autor cita amb profusió. El que és més rellevant és l’enfocament que decideix prendre l’autor, el qual ofereix una forma d’afrontar la qüestió de la guerra des d’un angle diferent, que allunya grans polítiques i estadístiques i apropa la realitat de la gent corrent, que al cap i a la fi no deixa de ser la víctima del procés històric.
Ara bé, l’obra de Martines planteja un seguit de problemes de certa gravetat. En primer lloc, al final del capítol introductori l’autor fa una crítica als historiadors i diu que no saben com treballar el sofriment de la guerra i que només l’enfoquen des d’un punt de vista tècnic, allunyat de la gent i el factor humà. Això ja genera certa reticència, ja que el fet de que la resta d’historiadors no tinguin interès en tractar el tema, no és motiu per desestimar la seva obra. A part d’aquesta crítica innecessària, també cal dir que una aportació innovadora no ha d’implicar desestimar les anteriors, moltes vegades simplement són l’ampliació del coneixement sobre un camp d’estudi.
Dintre d’aquest mateix fragment, l’autor escriu una sentència final que demostra de forma molt clara un posicionament força subjectiu respecte la història i que fa trontollar el que vulgui plantejar a continuació. La frase diu: “En su anàlisis, los historiadores también deberían tomar una postura determinada cuando se abordan cuestiones relativas al bien y al mal”. Aquí el que està implicant és que els historiadors haurien d’aplicar judicis de valor sobre tot el que estan estudiant, fet que presenta bastants problemes. La feina de l’investigador és reconstruir la realitat de la forma més fidedigne possible, jutjar-la és una tasca que hauria de venir desprès i que no té perquè ser el seu objectiu principal o un objectiu en si mateix. Aquesta postura provocarà que l’obra estigui marcada per una clara pinzellada de moralisme que no aporta res al debat historiogràfic.
Al final del setè capítol hi torna a haver una menció a la implicació ètica que han de tenir historiadors i també parla de “l’objectivitat fantasmagòrica” que persegueixen. Aquesta insistència dilueix en força mesura el propòsit del llibre, que acaba sent una col·lecció d’exemples de violència extrema i de situacions de patiment desesperat en diferents conflictes. Normalment es veu com tria els casos més terribles, com poden ser els que acaben en canibalisme, per tal de reforçar la narrativa moral que planteja al principi de l’obra. Amb tot, es va veient la configuració d’un biaix, amb el que l’autor compromet la representació d’una realitat històrica a les seva ètica personal. A més a més, això moltes vegades es tradueix en generalitzacions a partir dels exemples concrets, les quals utilitza per aplicar la seva moral a tota la societat europea de l’època moderna.
Pel que fa al recull dels passatges, l’autor compleix la seva feina i el retrat que crea és prou acurat i versemblant, a més està recolzat per les fonts i cites dels grans experts en el camp de la història militar com Geoffrey Parker, Jeremy Black o David Parrot, entre molts d’altres. El punt, però, és que no és res més que això: un recull d’històries. Presentar una corrua d’esdeveniments amb el simple objectiu de jutjar-ne la seva ètica i moral no és una
gran aportació. Martines es queda en aquest nivell tant superficial i profunditza molt poc. Al llarg del llibre s’aixequen una multitud de preguntes sobre el que s’està explicant i mai se’ls hi dona cap mena de resposta. L’autor no aborda la possibilitat de fer un anàlisi de la violència, els seus orígens, quanta part era fruit de la pròpia societat, quines eren les motivacions que hi havia al darrere, ni les actituds que prenien els que n’eren víctimes. Tampoc es fan valoracions comparatives entre les diferents zones i moments on es donaven els diferents episodis d’horror, fet que aportaria més detall i ajudaria a evitar les generalitzacions mencionades.
Finalment, el que queda és un llibre que descriu els detalls més escabrosos de la guerra amb l’objectiu de mostrar-ne el sofriment i les seves víctimes. Però aquestaa mirada cap a baix només es queda en això: una mirada, ja que en cap moment es fa un estudi en profunditat i analític.
Lauro Martines critica al món acadèmic per tractar la història de la guerra des del punt de vista de l’alta política, l’estratègia i les xifres, deixant a les víctimes de banda. Però en el seu intent d’acostar-s’hi no fa res més que explicar-ne les desgràcies més cridaneres, en lloc de donar-los les explicacions i la dedicació acadèmica que realment es mereixen.
November 1, 2024
Books on war often focus on grand political themes and grand political persons. The point of this book was to show how war affected everyday people and their everyday towns. The greatest army possible could take 8 days to march past one town, a merely very large one 4 days. Starving soldiers spread out into the country side taking everything the could as a replacement for missing pay and food. Armies simply couldn't march through very sparely populated areas because of this need to plunder to survive. One man from the time reports fleeing his home more than 10 times over the course of one year to escape armies. Passing reference is made to the fact that people in Asia experienced similar.
The book made me reflect the relative peace required for a suburban and rural middle and upper class and infrastructure to develop, and how odd, and what a blip, our current social structure is in the history of humanity.
2024: I forgot I head read it before. This time the relentlessness of raping and pillaging got very boring, there's only so many ways to do it, and I quit reading half way through. 2019 me had better thoughts.
The book made me reflect the relative peace required for a suburban and rural middle and upper class and infrastructure to develop, and how odd, and what a blip, our current social structure is in the history of humanity.
2024: I forgot I head read it before. This time the relentlessness of raping and pillaging got very boring, there's only so many ways to do it, and I quit reading half way through. 2019 me had better thoughts.
January 27, 2013
I really enjoyed this book, It gives alot of insight to the world and things in history that have been skipped over or not examined very closely. I do not even have a passion for history and this book sucked me in and kept me from my family for three days haha! it was just so good! I never thought I would enjoy history so much!
February 5, 2018
Much like the opening chapter, this non fiction historical book of the stark and brutal consequences to cities, countries, nations and civilians in Early Modern Europe meanders back and forth over around the 250 year period.
It is clearly meticulously researched and brought together but can get a bit repetitive as in different chapters just describe some of the same times and events just with a different focus. Often the information comes from diary observations of a range of sources; e.g. priests, nobles, generals, judges and/or soldiers or peddlers themselves.
Highlights include subtler things historian may not always think to include or describe like how much food standard 20,000-80,000 strong armies had to forage, plunder and consume just to survive as they fan out over the dozens of miles of countryside in every direction. Or the details of how soldiers were paid or press gang conscripted.
Another gruesome highlight is the the day by day account of certain sieges where you find out exactly retrogressed how they genuinely progressed from meats, to breads, to rats, cats and dogs, to leather boots and belts to slate, grass and waste then eventually resorting to cannibalism. Tonnages of foodstuffs and how they were transported e.g. the logistics.
The accuracy of the illnesses kill count % and exact costs of things e.g. financing or these armies were also excellent information and how different currencies worked.
There were some problems with the book though mainly around how repetitive it could get in the way things were described or explained. I also wasn't too keen on how often the author returned to the 30 years war which was initially mostly a German/holy roman empire affair. This bothered me a little as there were so many other interesting conflicts in this time period, particularly later on (Great Turkish War, the politics driven War of Spanish Succession etc).
Basically I would say either give every conflict an equal amount of attention or just admit it's mostly focused on the thirty years war. The back and forth madness of the chapters chronologically annoyed me quite a bit too. Other than that this was an interesting book that provides great source material increasing the authenticity of my Historical fiction set between 1679 and 1770.
It is clearly meticulously researched and brought together but can get a bit repetitive as in different chapters just describe some of the same times and events just with a different focus. Often the information comes from diary observations of a range of sources; e.g. priests, nobles, generals, judges and/or soldiers or peddlers themselves.
Highlights include subtler things historian may not always think to include or describe like how much food standard 20,000-80,000 strong armies had to forage, plunder and consume just to survive as they fan out over the dozens of miles of countryside in every direction. Or the details of how soldiers were paid or press gang conscripted.
Another gruesome highlight is the the day by day account of certain sieges where you find out exactly retrogressed how they genuinely progressed from meats, to breads, to rats, cats and dogs, to leather boots and belts to slate, grass and waste then eventually resorting to cannibalism. Tonnages of foodstuffs and how they were transported e.g. the logistics.
The accuracy of the illnesses kill count % and exact costs of things e.g. financing or these armies were also excellent information and how different currencies worked.
There were some problems with the book though mainly around how repetitive it could get in the way things were described or explained. I also wasn't too keen on how often the author returned to the 30 years war which was initially mostly a German/holy roman empire affair. This bothered me a little as there were so many other interesting conflicts in this time period, particularly later on (Great Turkish War, the politics driven War of Spanish Succession etc).
Basically I would say either give every conflict an equal amount of attention or just admit it's mostly focused on the thirty years war. The back and forth madness of the chapters chronologically annoyed me quite a bit too. Other than that this was an interesting book that provides great source material increasing the authenticity of my Historical fiction set between 1679 and 1770.
July 22, 2022
In his book Furies, historian Lauro Martines analyzes the social effects and implications of war in early modern Europe. Viewing the war through a civilian perspective, Martines elucidates the vehement vortex of violence which engulfed daily life in continental Europe. The author seems frustrated with the detached and impassive attitude that has characterized the scholarship of early modern wars and seeks to understand the tragedies of war through a moral lens as opposed to a purely quantitative one. Hence, he examines war’s effect on the common citizenry. Martines also seeks to fill in the gaps of the historical literature, narrating various battles that have yet to be fully recorded by scholars. Through examining the social impacts of war, Martines is able to draw conclusions about the nature of the state in early modern Europe.
Furies is not organized chronologically, but rather threads together various war scenes to illustrate broader themes. Cleverly, the opening chapter is titled “A War Mosaic,” as if the given war anecdotes fit together like colored clay shards to form a picture of Europe. Martines describes episodes of the European wars, such as a German peasant boy who is hung for attempting to smuggle food into his city and a countryman who is mutilated and branded for deserting his infantry, which convey the brutal climate of the continent during the period. Beginning with effects on individual lives, Martines shifts to larger demographic impacts, such as the decrease in the adult male population. Soldiers of early modern European armies were typically recruited through impressment and thus lacked the finesse of a voluntarily-trained militia. Furthermore, the wages and food supply were often frugal. The rigid hierarchy of early modern Europe was still present in armies, as soldiers wielded little social status and high-ranking military officials conversely hailed from the nobility.
The merciless atmosphere brought on by battle in civilian territory is subsequently examined. Martines describes three city sackings: Brescia, Antwerp, and Magdeburg. These attacks all illustrate the horrific violence, theft, and rape which ravaged cities. Martines is also attempting to fill in the gaps in scholarship as he chooses these three sacks because of the lack of study committed to them. Maintaining the theme of civilian battle, four sieges—like sackings but prolonged—are accounted for: Siena, Sancerre, Augsburg, and the deadliest siege of early modern Europe: Paris. These endless accounts of villages and cities under attack illuminate the barbaric atrocities brought on by war and the dire effects on ordinary people. Martines points out that some citizens were even pushed to cannibalism. The innovation of advanced weaponry is partially accountable for these increased atrocities, as it consistently escalated the death count of battle.
A primary focus of Martines is the financial consequences of war. The cost of building an army was steep and rulers thus had to implement a sturdy tax system to compensate for new costs. This, in part, led to taxation becoming a central political issue. Tax revenue, however, did not cover the full cost of warfare, and thus many countries were plunged into debt. The financial ramifications of war, he argues, laid the foundation for the emergence of European states in the early modern era.
Martines’ book takes a refreshing perspective on a subject which is certainly not lacking in literature. Along with the moral maelstrom unleashed by battle, the author primarily focuses on two other aspects of war: the financial impact on European states and the construction and composition of early modern European armies. Firstly, the financial requirement of war led to states accumulating uncontrollable debt which significantly influenced their formation as entities. Second, the necessity for men in constructing armies required impressment. Forcefully recruiting soldiers meant armies were built with men who required pay and lacked the skills of professionals. While the collection of evidence Martines uses to demonstrate these points can at times feel disjointed, he nevertheless makes persuasive arguments.
Furies is a social history of early modern warfare. Using both anecdotes as well as general analyses of battle scenes, he brings into view the brutality of war on daily life for the European citizenry. Rather than recounting war through its trail of papers—offering a purely quantitative account—or through a political lens, Martines’ perspective is a moral one. Believing that the war tragedies of early modern Europe have been discussed in an overly-impassive manner, he seeks to emphasize the atrocities that everyday citizens dealt with during the period. Additionally, he highlights aspects of the wars which have lacked substantial scholarship, such as the three sackings he narrates in Chapter Three.
The collection of sources which Martines uses is impressive. Most of the narrations of various sieges and battles comes from primary sources of citizens caught in the midst of battle. Thus, their accounts are chronicles of the events. His body of secondary sources is equally substantial. He frequently offers the viewpoints of other historians which either support his view or are used to play devil’s advocate. Both strengthen his arguments and offer diverse thoughts on the historical subject. The book is lacking footnotes, however, which can make exploring a particular source inconvenient if the author or historian is not explicitly named.
Discussing European warfare through a new perspective, Martines’ Furies is a well-researched and persuasively-argued book. Any historian of early modern Europe or European social and military history will find the book an invaluable resource, but it is certainly accessible for popular audiences as well. The book is organized thematically rather than chronologically, which is nevertheless effective in conveying the author’s argument despite feeling somewhat scattered. War over a period of 250 years is of course a colossal subject in which the surface can only be scratched in a 300-page book. Martines’ book is a successful portrayal of early modern European wars from a civilian perspective and is persuasive in the arguments it makes.
Furies is not organized chronologically, but rather threads together various war scenes to illustrate broader themes. Cleverly, the opening chapter is titled “A War Mosaic,” as if the given war anecdotes fit together like colored clay shards to form a picture of Europe. Martines describes episodes of the European wars, such as a German peasant boy who is hung for attempting to smuggle food into his city and a countryman who is mutilated and branded for deserting his infantry, which convey the brutal climate of the continent during the period. Beginning with effects on individual lives, Martines shifts to larger demographic impacts, such as the decrease in the adult male population. Soldiers of early modern European armies were typically recruited through impressment and thus lacked the finesse of a voluntarily-trained militia. Furthermore, the wages and food supply were often frugal. The rigid hierarchy of early modern Europe was still present in armies, as soldiers wielded little social status and high-ranking military officials conversely hailed from the nobility.
The merciless atmosphere brought on by battle in civilian territory is subsequently examined. Martines describes three city sackings: Brescia, Antwerp, and Magdeburg. These attacks all illustrate the horrific violence, theft, and rape which ravaged cities. Martines is also attempting to fill in the gaps in scholarship as he chooses these three sacks because of the lack of study committed to them. Maintaining the theme of civilian battle, four sieges—like sackings but prolonged—are accounted for: Siena, Sancerre, Augsburg, and the deadliest siege of early modern Europe: Paris. These endless accounts of villages and cities under attack illuminate the barbaric atrocities brought on by war and the dire effects on ordinary people. Martines points out that some citizens were even pushed to cannibalism. The innovation of advanced weaponry is partially accountable for these increased atrocities, as it consistently escalated the death count of battle.
A primary focus of Martines is the financial consequences of war. The cost of building an army was steep and rulers thus had to implement a sturdy tax system to compensate for new costs. This, in part, led to taxation becoming a central political issue. Tax revenue, however, did not cover the full cost of warfare, and thus many countries were plunged into debt. The financial ramifications of war, he argues, laid the foundation for the emergence of European states in the early modern era.
Martines’ book takes a refreshing perspective on a subject which is certainly not lacking in literature. Along with the moral maelstrom unleashed by battle, the author primarily focuses on two other aspects of war: the financial impact on European states and the construction and composition of early modern European armies. Firstly, the financial requirement of war led to states accumulating uncontrollable debt which significantly influenced their formation as entities. Second, the necessity for men in constructing armies required impressment. Forcefully recruiting soldiers meant armies were built with men who required pay and lacked the skills of professionals. While the collection of evidence Martines uses to demonstrate these points can at times feel disjointed, he nevertheless makes persuasive arguments.
Furies is a social history of early modern warfare. Using both anecdotes as well as general analyses of battle scenes, he brings into view the brutality of war on daily life for the European citizenry. Rather than recounting war through its trail of papers—offering a purely quantitative account—or through a political lens, Martines’ perspective is a moral one. Believing that the war tragedies of early modern Europe have been discussed in an overly-impassive manner, he seeks to emphasize the atrocities that everyday citizens dealt with during the period. Additionally, he highlights aspects of the wars which have lacked substantial scholarship, such as the three sackings he narrates in Chapter Three.
The collection of sources which Martines uses is impressive. Most of the narrations of various sieges and battles comes from primary sources of citizens caught in the midst of battle. Thus, their accounts are chronicles of the events. His body of secondary sources is equally substantial. He frequently offers the viewpoints of other historians which either support his view or are used to play devil’s advocate. Both strengthen his arguments and offer diverse thoughts on the historical subject. The book is lacking footnotes, however, which can make exploring a particular source inconvenient if the author or historian is not explicitly named.
Discussing European warfare through a new perspective, Martines’ Furies is a well-researched and persuasively-argued book. Any historian of early modern Europe or European social and military history will find the book an invaluable resource, but it is certainly accessible for popular audiences as well. The book is organized thematically rather than chronologically, which is nevertheless effective in conveying the author’s argument despite feeling somewhat scattered. War over a period of 250 years is of course a colossal subject in which the surface can only be scratched in a 300-page book. Martines’ book is a successful portrayal of early modern European wars from a civilian perspective and is persuasive in the arguments it makes.
December 29, 2017
A thorough study of war in the early modern period, Martines strays away from the usual "great man" tales of great kings, princes and generals seeking glory across the land and instead gets right down to ground level - the level of the lowly soldier, peasant and camp follower of the huge armies that marched up and down Europe's countrysides between 1450-1700, devouring any resources, farms, and people in their way. Wars we normally see through the lens of Hollywood as noble battles between armoured knights and crossbowmen are treated like the brutal affairs they were, and this gives the book a powerful - and likely intentional - anti-war viewpoint.
After all, rich elites sending the young and desperate to die fighting for a cause they barely understand isn't just something that happened in medieval times.
After all, rich elites sending the young and desperate to die fighting for a cause they barely understand isn't just something that happened in medieval times.
August 8, 2020
'Furies' is one of the more enlightening histories I have read about this period in European history. While it documents the internecine warfare among dynasties and describes battles and tactics, it also provides remarkable insights to the effects these wars had on the cities, towns, and people of that age. What makes this a great book is the perspective. Rather than focus primarily on the big battles and big wars of the age, it also lets us peer into the challenges, victories, defeats and miseries of the everyday people who were caught up in its terrible consequences (poverty, disease, and savage mistreatment).
Well worth the read for any student of history interested in more than just a "big picture" treatise.
Well worth the read for any student of history interested in more than just a "big picture" treatise.
September 11, 2019
A conceptually admirable rethink of the focus of military history that dives deep into what Renaissance warfare looked like for those on the ground living through it (namely, unrelentingly brutal, miserable, and violent). Not sure all its constituent parts work as well as they could, but more military history should do what this book does - step away from high politics and maneuvers and focus on those who suffered for it.
3.5
3.5
June 4, 2019
Martines shows us the horrifying reality of early modern warfare from the perspective of the common soldiers and peasants who lived it, rather than the focusing on statesmen and nobility who ordered it. The learned phrase "Bellum se ipsum alet" cloaked murder, rape, robbery, starvation and pestilence on a scale that boggles the mind, and from this morass was birthed the modern nation state.
May 19, 2017
really more like 3.5 stars. contains valuable and interesting information but feels scattershot and doesn't spend a lot of time on any one encounter, which is a shame because it's obviously well-researched.
October 15, 2023
6'5/10
Em costarà recomanar aquesta edició. El llibre no és gens dolent, però la traducció i l'edició és, com a molt, lamentable. Si fos l'autor els denunciava.
Em costarà recomanar aquesta edició. El llibre no és gens dolent, però la traducció i l'edició és, com a molt, lamentable. Si fos l'autor els denunciava.
June 7, 2013
In the broad context of early modern Europe, the most transformative sequence of events behind the renaissance was the 30 Years War. While the early wars of religion in Luther’s own time plagued cities and towns with religious discord and violence, it paled in comparison to the pure destructive brutality that awaited society in the middle of the seventeenth century.
Into this particularly destructive locus of time in history enters Lauro Martines, a scholar of renaissance Italy and Europe. Martines’ approach to unpacking the history of early modern Europe is to explore the violence and destruction thematically rather than chronologically. Whereas past narratives have been in depth studies of one or more countries or state actors, Martines cuts a broad swath with his analysis of society from Rome to the Lapland. In his effort to create a compelling narrative of human suffering he is undoubtedly successful, however as a serious work of social history it fails rather spectacularly.
Early on, Martines betrays his own personal interest in the following examples he lists. Martines writes:
“In the study of war, historians should also be positioned where questions of right and wrong move into view”.
The rest of the book then becomes a sort of pulpit for Martines to rage against the actions of historical actors who have upset his sensibilities in one way or another. The author spends a great deal of time criticizing Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus for his campaigns and also upon the inter-ethnic makeup of armies at the time. Weirdly, Martines seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on Adolphus despite the fact that the Lion of the North dies in 1632 and Sweden plays a less important role in the coming peace that would eventually follow.
Returning to the author’s claim that it is important for historians to be judges, it goes without saying that events such as the sacking of Augsburg leave a decidedly bitter taste in the mouth to present day readers; but that it is also important to understand the actions and their intent before placing summary judgment. An action can of course be morally and ethically wrong by society’s estimation, but without trying to understand the actions and goals of the actors and what that means in a larger sense, any study is bound for eventual irrelevance.
I wanted to like Furies. I find the idea of thematic examination in social history an interesting proposition; however it would be best to view this work as an attempt at exploring themes of early Europe rather than the rule to follow.
For students of early to modern Europe, this work presents no real new evidence or changes in the generally established facts. While containing some compelling translations of witnesses and their testimony, the author fails to create a cohesive structure around these quotes.
Instead, I would recommend reading the late CV Wedgewood’s opus on the Thirty Years War, which provides a more nuanced and fluid understanding of the times and the characters despite not having the rhetorical flourish that Martines tries so hard to stock in every page.
Recommended for experience readers of early to modern Europe.
Full review at www.lovepovertyandwar.wordpress.com
Into this particularly destructive locus of time in history enters Lauro Martines, a scholar of renaissance Italy and Europe. Martines’ approach to unpacking the history of early modern Europe is to explore the violence and destruction thematically rather than chronologically. Whereas past narratives have been in depth studies of one or more countries or state actors, Martines cuts a broad swath with his analysis of society from Rome to the Lapland. In his effort to create a compelling narrative of human suffering he is undoubtedly successful, however as a serious work of social history it fails rather spectacularly.
Early on, Martines betrays his own personal interest in the following examples he lists. Martines writes:
“In the study of war, historians should also be positioned where questions of right and wrong move into view”.
The rest of the book then becomes a sort of pulpit for Martines to rage against the actions of historical actors who have upset his sensibilities in one way or another. The author spends a great deal of time criticizing Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus for his campaigns and also upon the inter-ethnic makeup of armies at the time. Weirdly, Martines seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on Adolphus despite the fact that the Lion of the North dies in 1632 and Sweden plays a less important role in the coming peace that would eventually follow.
Returning to the author’s claim that it is important for historians to be judges, it goes without saying that events such as the sacking of Augsburg leave a decidedly bitter taste in the mouth to present day readers; but that it is also important to understand the actions and their intent before placing summary judgment. An action can of course be morally and ethically wrong by society’s estimation, but without trying to understand the actions and goals of the actors and what that means in a larger sense, any study is bound for eventual irrelevance.
I wanted to like Furies. I find the idea of thematic examination in social history an interesting proposition; however it would be best to view this work as an attempt at exploring themes of early Europe rather than the rule to follow.
For students of early to modern Europe, this work presents no real new evidence or changes in the generally established facts. While containing some compelling translations of witnesses and their testimony, the author fails to create a cohesive structure around these quotes.
Instead, I would recommend reading the late CV Wedgewood’s opus on the Thirty Years War, which provides a more nuanced and fluid understanding of the times and the characters despite not having the rhetorical flourish that Martines tries so hard to stock in every page.
Recommended for experience readers of early to modern Europe.
Full review at www.lovepovertyandwar.wordpress.com
April 24, 2013
I really didn't think I would get through it since it was not assigned by my History 437 professor, but I decided to give it a go after reading about it in the Wall Street Journal which gave it a good review. It's an amazing perspective on how war affected not the territories or coffers of warlords, but on how it affected the common farmer or villager, on what it was like to be a soldier or city dweller during a siege. It's pretty grim and a great reminder of how horrible war is for everyone. Some of the great wars in Europe during this period included the wars between the Netherlands and Spain, the 30 years war in Germany, the battles in France between the Catholics and Huguenots and in Italy between the Guelphs and the Ghibelines. Martines breaks down the impact of war in about 8 quick chapters including topics like plunder (it's not easy for an army to sack a city and carry a bunch of heavy things back with them), siege (all I can say is cannibalism), religion (somehow everyone was on the "right" side"), and finance (banking and public debt carried a big role even back then). It was a great perspective not on the battle scene you would have seen in the Louvre, but on the actual horrible circumstances if you had actually been there. Kind of makes me want to go back to school and have Martines for that History 437 class.
October 27, 2013
I didn't finish this history of medieval warfare. It's not that I'm not interested in the subject; indeed, some of the anecdotes included were fascinating. The author is respected and has written other work. But I just couldn't get into the author's writing style or the way he jumped from century to century, decade to decade, country to country, overlapping times and places in a way that seemed jumbled. I understood that he was giving us an overview of the average soldier's experience. But way that it was organized made it a little tedious to follow. I didn't really care for his writing style, either, which I know is very subjective; there were just too many cliches or odd turns of phrase, and the reader was left wishing some of the descriptions could have been more concise.
If you want an overview of medieval warfare, this book offers some anecdotes that you might not encounter elsewhere. If you are doing a review of literature or other work in which you should be comprehensive, read it.
If you want an overview of medieval warfare, this book offers some anecdotes that you might not encounter elsewhere. If you are doing a review of literature or other work in which you should be comprehensive, read it.
July 18, 2013
You have to be a hard core history buff to read this book, but if you are, you will really like it. It covers war in Europe between 1450 and 1700, but not as a review of wars and battles (though specific battles in real wars are used as specific examples of what the book does cover). This history presents what war was like from the social and economic point of view: how much did it cost? Who paid and how? How did war impact peasants? Who made up the armies, and how were they recruited or impressed? How did the soldiers and their officers (and all of the followers) live? What happened once the army won a battle, or lost one? If you want a true picture of what war was like and how it impacted regular people during this time period, read this book.
June 23, 2025
5.0 out of 5 stars
Real stories behind the history,
This review is from: Furies: War in Europe, 1450-1700 (Hardcover)
Having been looking for a while for particular information on France in the 16th century, not dates and political records, but rather the human angle on historical events, I was delighted to find this book. Here are the stories behind the 'headlines', what it was like for ordinary people to be caught up in the wars that raged across Europe at this period. It isn't the most comfortable reading - some of the details are necessarily horrific - but they aren't gratuitous, and it is both well written and well organised. Highly recommended.
Real stories behind the history,
This review is from: Furies: War in Europe, 1450-1700 (Hardcover)
Having been looking for a while for particular information on France in the 16th century, not dates and political records, but rather the human angle on historical events, I was delighted to find this book. Here are the stories behind the 'headlines', what it was like for ordinary people to be caught up in the wars that raged across Europe at this period. It isn't the most comfortable reading - some of the details are necessarily horrific - but they aren't gratuitous, and it is both well written and well organised. Highly recommended.
February 1, 2013
I found this book to be informative. It is easy to appreciate the amount of research Lauro Martines put into this book on the history of Wars from 1450-1700. The descriptions of the horrors experienced by both those forced into military service and civilians of the times; What life was really like is detailed in this book more so than any other book I have read on War and Wartime about the lives of those who lived during these horrific and tyrannical times. A good read for in depth description of what happened and what it was like.
July 24, 2013
The era of the Renaissance was not all Michelangelo and Shakespeare, unfortunately. As Lauro Martines makes clear in this book, the convergence of new technologies, religious division, and the growth of centralized authority and power in what would become the modern European nations contributed to the incessant, destructive wars of these two and a half centuries. Above all, "Furies" showcases conflict from the view of the grunt and the civilian, and proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that in all times, war is hell.
January 18, 2016
How "total war" affected the life of everyone during the Renaissance. From the author "to write a history from the standpoint of the common soldier, or villagers, and of the inhabitants of cities under the battering of merciless sieges. I was also driven to fix attention on the sight of starving armies, on famine, cannibalism, the massive plundering of food and livestock, and on churches pillaged, children and women violated, farms laid waste, houses torn apart for firewood, and men butchered. This--not the claims of rulers--was the true face of war."
July 11, 2013
An exceptional, and exceptionally lucid, study of the cost--financial, cultural, and human--of war in the 16th and 17th centuries. Through carefully selected representative stories of the conduct of war in this brutal period of European history, Martines makes the case that the civil governments that followed were not so much an outcome of the Renaissance or the early Enlightenment, but of the necessity of sovereigns to feed and maintain large standing armies.
June 9, 2013
If you are interested in the early modern period you'll want to read this book, but I really think the format, and the slant of the author make this book a disappointment. I thought he contradicted himself several times, and I have some serious issues with a historian who will say a source exaggerates but then goes on to say but what the source says can't all be wrong. There is a term for that - cherry picking.
May 8, 2014
A thorough retort to every textbook and movie that romanticizes Absolutism and the wars led my princes and kings during the Early Modern period in Europe. The name of the book is quite apropos in that the "moving cities" which waged war during this time period were starved, unpaid, and relentless. This invariably led to the destruction of whole communities and explains why civilians, not soldiers, were those most likely to die in war.
June 3, 2015
This is a history of a crucial period in European history and the emergence of the modern state. The author however is more interested in finding a new angle on an old story and has elected to focus on the violence rather than on the broader sweep of history. Nothing wrong with this, but for those new to the history this may not be the book for you. Furies is a work for the jaded and the informed.
In the end, though, the book wasn't all that enlightening or informative.
3 out of 5 stars.
In the end, though, the book wasn't all that enlightening or informative.
3 out of 5 stars.
September 12, 2013
I found it a very challenging read because I am not a "history buff" and am not familiar with the wars covered in the book--had to do a lot of Googling to bring myself up to "start", let alone speed, on the issues. But well worth it to highlight the savagery of war, politics, religion, and the financial system and the fiendish disregard of the powerful for the weak, undiminished 350 years later.
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