Furies: War in Europe, 1450–1700

Lauro Martines

Jan 2013 · Bloomsbury Publishing USA

About this ebook

During the European Renaissance, an age marked equally by revolutionary thought and constant warfare, it was armies, rather than philosophers, who shaped the modern European nation state. "Mobile cities" of mercenaries and other paid soldiers-made up of astonishingly diverse aggregations of ethnicities and nationalities-marched across the land, looting and savaging enemy territories.
In the 15th century, Poland hired German, Spanish, Bohemian, Hungarian, and Scottish soldiers. Later, Sweden fought in Muscovy with Irish, English, Scottish, French and German troops. Units of Croats, Germans, Walloons, Albanians, and especially Swiss served in French armies. In the Netherlands, Italians and Spaniards fought beside Irishmen, Germans, Dalmatians, and Walloons. Regiments of Swiss pikemen fought for Spain, France, and Venice, as well as for German and Italian princes. Companies of Poles, Hungarians, and Croatians fought in German regiments.
Growing national economies, unable to pay or feed massed armies for any length of time, thus became war states, an early nationalism which would later consume modern Europe. Furies: War in Europe 1450-1700 by acclaimed historian of the Renaissance Lauro Martines compellingly and simply delivers the story of modern Europe's martial roots, capturing the brutality of early modern war and how it shaped the history of a continent

About the author

Lauro Martines is one of the world's foremost historians of the Italian Renaissance and Early Modern Europe. He is the author of nine books, most recently the critically acclaimed titles Fire in the City: Savonarola and the Struggle for the Soul of Renaissance Florence (OUP 2007) and April Blood: Florence and the Plot Against the Medici (OUP 2004). Formerly a professor at UCLA, he has lived in London for many years.