Hello!
I would love to read up about this turbulent and yet fascinating period in European history.
Its kind of hard to figure out where to start with the causes for this conflict, but the more information about the social conditions that let to this the better.
For what its worth, I am developing a particular fondness for Demography recently, so any book that also can tie in the demography of Central Europe during that period would be....... extra super interesting to me!
Any suggestions are super welcome though.
/regards
Hey there,
I suppose you are looking for English books on the subject? Otherwise, I would recommend German authors Georg Schmidt and Johannes Burkhardt, who are both experts on the 30 Years War and wrote standard introductions on the subject.
For a complete picture and understanding of the period and structural deficits of the Holy Roman Empire, I would however point out Peter H. Wilson, who has contributed a new classic:
Wilson, Peter H. (2009): The Thirty Years War. Europe's Tradgedy, London: Penguin Books (available as paper back).
On the subject of demographics, I do not have an immediate recommendation. There is one great German publication, though, that I can highly recommend:
Eickhoff, Sabine; Schopper, Franz (Ed.) (2012): 1636 - Ihre letzte Schlacht. Leben im Dreißigjährigen Krieg, Stuttgart: Theiss.
Eickhoff and Schopper present research on the Battle of Wittstock, which took place on October 4th, 1636, based on the discovery of a mass grave with the remains of 125 mercenaries. The book goes into archaelogical detail, but highlights the socio-economic circumstances and lives of the fallen soldiers in depth. The findings were presented as special exhibition during the commemorative year 2011/2012.
You can visit the English version of the original homepage of the exhibition here: https://1636.de/?lang=en.
A German review of the book can be found here: http://www.sehepunkte.de/2012/09/21868.html (maybe use Google translator).
You've already got what's probably one of the best single books to read on the topic: Peter Wilson's The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy. Wilson does a very good job of delving deep into the causes of the war, tying it to the bizzare and complex interrelated nature of Central Europe in the early 17th century. Since you said you're interested in demography, you'll be pleased to know that Wilson does address that, particularly with regard to some of the oft claimed mortality of the war, but does talk a little about the people fighting iin and living through the war.
Another common recommendation is C.V. Wedgwood's work on the Thirty Years War. Her work is very good, but it does suffer from being more than 80 years old, as Wedgwood originally published in the late 1930s. Reading older works should always be taken with a grain of salt as lots can change in academia over time, as new sources are ucnovered and other generations of scholars write on the topic. Wedgwood's work is still good, but you should definitely read it in conjunction with something more modern.
I'd also recommend you checkout the r/AskHistorians booklist which has a lot of good resources for recommended literature.
The Thirty Years War by CV Wedgewood is a good one. I listened to the audiobook on Audible last summer. I will never say “Brandenburg” “Tilly” and “Magdeburg” the same ever again.
It was tedious to listen to in places because I didn’t have maps in front of my eyes. I knew very little (I mean way more than the average person knows-but then you find out how little that is) and will need to read it again with maps and a primer if I really want to understand intricacies. I was able to teach a pretty good class to my AP Euros about the 30 years war and the nuance on this allowed most of them to get their outside evidence point.