The Thirty Years War

Europe's Tragedy

By: Peter H. Wilson

Narrated by: Matthew Waterson

Length: 33 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

The Thirty Years War devastated seventeenth-century Europe, killing nearly a quarter of all Germans and laying waste to towns and countryside alike. Peter Wilson offers the first new history in a generation of a horrifying conflict that transformed the map of the modern world.

When defiant Bohemians tossed the Habsburg emperor's envoys from the castle windows in Prague in 1618, the Holy Roman Empire struck back with a vengeance. Bohemia was ravaged by mercenary troops in the first battle of a conflagration that would engulf Europe from Spain to Sweden. The sweeping narrative encompasses dramatic events and unforgettable individuals—the sack of Magdeburg; the Dutch revolt; the Swedish militant king Gustavus Adolphus; the imperial generals, Wallenstein and Tilly; and diplomat Cardinal Richelieu. In a major reassessment, Wilson argues that religion was not the catalyst, but one element in a lethal stew of political, social, and dynastic forces that fed the conflict.

By war's end a recognizably modern Europe had been created, but at what price? The Thirty Years War condemned the Germans to two centuries of internal division and international impotence and became a benchmark of brutality for centuries. As late as the 1960s, Germans placed it ahead of both world wars and the Black Death as their country's greatest disaster.

©2009 Peter H. Wilson (P)2023 Tantor

Less caffeine, narrator

It’s like the narrator was getting paid in words per minute because punctuation did nothing to slow them down. Maybe listening at half or 3/4 speed would be better, but he was going WAY too fast given the density of the material.

Buy the book, skip this unprofessional voice actor

The voice actor has trouble pronouncing words, frequently pausing audibly to gather himself before tough ones. And he frequently seems to grow bored with the text he’s reading.

Chaotic and confusing

But maybe that’s just the fog of war and that’s that and we just have to accept it.

A great survey

The Thirty Years War is obviously an intimidating topic, but this audiobook does as good a job as possible presenting the material in a listenable format.

So much learned…

I had no idea about the 30 year war until reading this book. So interesting the history that built up to make Europe what it is now.

Very detailed

The book is extremely informative and very well researched. The TYW was a pivotal event , or more accurately series of events, in the history of Western civilization. The story could have been told effectively with much less detail. It was a hard slog.

Well written & fascinating

Very informative and well researched story of war & chaos across Europe. Fascinating for me, as I thought it was only the British that managed to destroy so much during the 1600’s.

Informative but boring

This not a book for casual history buff. If you studied the 30-years war as your phD this book might be the one you’re looking for. The author has tremendous knowledge of this era, This is demonstrated by the unending facts and descriptions. For a novice who has no knowledge of the war it is overwhelming.

As just one illustration I’ll present at the following: At the conclusion of the war the listener has over 4-hours of listening left. You’d expect a summary but the following is so detailed as not (for me) to form conclusions. The general narrative is historians generally portrayed “X” as “Y” but these are not true in these cases of “I”, “J” and “K” but true in “Z”. All with enormous lists of facts and figures.

Please would someone tell me what the 30-year war meant to Europe!!!!!!!!!!

Again I’m not taking anything away from the author.

A comprehensive and detailed account and analysis of the Thirty Years war in Europe. Delivery was excellent.

Additional YouTube history videos can help the reader or listener to visualise the geography better.

I hope you've played EU4

There is no way I would've been able to follow along to all the place names if I hadn't already put hundreds of hours into video games based on maps of Europe. With that however, I found myself following along perfectly without having to consult maps, only occasionally needing to consult Wikipedia articles for historical personalities and events mentioned in passing, like the Schmalkaldic War. Does a good job telling the whole story without trying to justify an interpretation, a wonderful thing for a non-expert history book.