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Jonestown, Waco, and Heaven's Gate resonate in the contemporary mind in the same way that Masada or Mount Tabor resonated in the minds of others long past. The members of these movements believed that the end of the world was at hand and that they had to act through violence or suicide to ensure its occurrence. Frederic Baumgartner explores the long, often violent, history of millennialism as it has affected Western civilization. From ancient Zoroastrians to Concerned Christians of 1998, a belief in the imminent end of the world and the coming of the new age has motivated hundreds of sects and cults, some of which have burned out in an orgy of violence to become a permanent part of Western history.
Both the golden age of the Renaissance state and the catastrophic
era of the Wars of Religion, this fascinating period in French
history has been oddly neglected by English-language historians.
Professor Baumgartner's book fills a major gap in the textbook
market: an accessible, fully current account which covers the
principal political, economic and cultural themes from Francois I's
successful centralization of the state, through France's near
prostration under the Catholic-Huguenot civil war, and ending with
the accession of Henri IV.
The reign of Louis XII (1498-1515) has been much neglected by
historians. Falling between the conventional end of the French
middle ages and Francis I's notional ushering in of Renaissance
France, Louis' rule 'belongs' neither to medievalists nor to
historians of the the early modern period. While not in the front
rank of French monarchs, Louis XII, 'The Father of the People',
remains an interesting and appealing figure, and the events of his
reign (the Valois-Habsburg wars in Italy, Louis' bitter disputes
with Pope Julius II, the complications of his marriages) had a
profound effect on the future of the French state. France's church,
legal system, and cultural life (many of the artistic achievements
associated with the reign of Francis I in fact occurred under
Louis) were all strongly influenced by the king, and this readable
and lucid account of his rule offers a wealth of interesting
information.
This is a fast-paced survey of the history of war in the
Eurasian world from classical Greece to the French Revolution.
Defining the period as the era of pre-industrial warfare, Frederic
Baumgartner describes the broad differences, as well as the
similarities, in the armies through those 2,000 years. He suggests
that the Greek hoplite, the Roman legionary, the nomadic horse
archer, the medieval knight, the Swiss pikeman, the early
musketeer, and other military types have more in common with each
other than with the soldier of the twentieth century. Although he
concentrates on the wars and military systems of western Europe,
Baumgartner devotes considerable attention to those societies that
had a significant impact on European warfare. The Byzantine Empire,
the Arabs, the Central Asian nomads, and the Ottoman Turks are
examined as are the countries of eastern Europe. Naval history is
well integrated into the work with special attention given to
galley warfare in the Mediterranean between Christendom and Islam.
Fortification and siegecraft are also discussed extensively.
Baumgartner has produced a significant original synthesis of
scholarship on military history. It is not a series of biographies
of great commanders or studies of the tactics of great battles,
although a number of battles are examined in some detail to
illustrate the tactics, fighting style, or weapons system typical
of a particular era. Baumgartner is more concerned with
illuminating the close relationship between social and economic
change and military change throughout history. This work will be
useful as a textbook for a college-level course in military history
or as supplemental reading for classes in Western civilization.
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