• This fourth edition has been updated throughout to discuss the global Middle Ages, medieval slavery, climate change and intercontinental pandemics and European exchange with Africa, the Americas and Asia to provide students with a broader understanding of the medieval period which looks beyond the usual European boarders reflecting the new trends in teaching and research. • Chapter summaries have been added to each chapter to support students' understanding of the topics, and the glossary has been fully updated to give modern students the confidence and language to discuss medieval history. • This book provides a political, economic, cultural, and social history of Medieval Europe and the world it existed within, it is divided into four chronological parts containing thematic chapters which provide students and lecturers with an essential foundation in the history of Medieval Europe. • The book is full colour throughout and is supported by pedagogical features within the book, such as primary source boxes. This book ensures that students with little or no prior knowledge of the subject are guided through the material in an engaging way. • The start of each chapter includes a historiography summary box providing students with an overview of the key debates for each theme, providing lecturers and students with a comprehensive historiographical summary, perfect to get students up to speed before class. • Signposting throughout the book highlights key subjects and debates that students should be aware of, ensuring that students can easily navigate through the book in their independent learning and in class.

• This fourth edition has been updated throughout to discuss the global Middle Ages, medieval slavery, climate change and intercontinental pandemics and European exchange with Africa, the Americas and Asia to provide students with a broader understanding of the medieval period which looks beyond the usual European boarders reflecting the new trends in teaching and research. • Chapter summaries have been added to each chapter to support students' understanding of the topics, and the glossary has been fully updated to give modern students the confidence and language to discuss medieval history. • This book provides a political, economic, cultural, and social history of Medieval Europe and the world it existed within, it is divided into four chronological parts containing thematic chapters which provide students and lecturers with an essential foundation in the history of Medieval Europe. • The book is full colour throughout and is supported by pedagogical features within the book, such as primary source boxes. This book ensures that students with little or no prior knowledge of the subject are guided through the material in an engaging way. • The start of each chapter includes a historiography summary box providing students with an overview of the key debates for each theme, providing lecturers and students with a comprehensive historiographical summary, perfect to get students up to speed before class. • Signposting throughout the book highlights key subjects and debates that students should be aware of, ensuring that students can easily navigate through the book in their independent learning and in class.

Examining the ideologies that motivated the members of the parliaments of Sweden, Poland, and Hungary in the Eighteenth Century, this book will appeal to students and researchers alike interested in the early modern institutions which have now been replaced with their more democratic counterparts.

The mass media are playing an increasingly central role in modern political life that expands beyond their traditional function as mediators between the world of politics and the citizens. This volume explores the extent and circumstances under which the media affects public policy; whether the political impact of the media is confined to the public representation of politics or whether their influence goes further to also affect the substance of political decisions. It provides an in-depth understanding of the conditions under which the media might, or might not, play a role in the policy process and what the nature of their influence is. Bringing together conceptual and methodological approaches from both political science and communications studies, this book presents an interdisciplinary perspective. It presents empirical evidence of the processes involved in the interaction between mass communication and policy and features case studies from Western Europe and the US and across different policy fields. The book will be of interest to students of public policy, political communication and comparative politics.

The emergence of the state in Europe is a topic that has engaged historians since the establishment of the discipline of history. Yet the primary focus of has nearly always been to take a top-down approach, whereby the formation and consolidation of public institutions is viewed as the outcome of activities by princes and other social elites. Yet, as the essays in this collection show, such an approach does not provide a complete picture. By investigating the importance of local and individual initiatives that contributed to state building from the late middle ages through to the nineteenth century, this volume shows how popular pressure could influence those in power to develop new institutional structures. By not privileging the role of warfare and of elite coercion for state building, it is possible to question the traditional top-down model and explore the degree to which central agencies might have been more important for state representation than for state practice. The studies included in this collection treat many parts of Europe and deal with different phases in the period between the late middle ages and the nineteenth century. Beginning with a critical review of state historiography, the introduction then sets out the concept of 'empowering interactions' which is then explored in the subsequent case studies and a number of historiographical, methodological and theoretical essays. Taken as a whole this collection provides a fascinating platform to reconsider the relationships between top-down and bottom-up processes in the history of the European state.

The Routledge Handbook of Maritime Trade around Europe 1300-1600 explores the links between maritime trading networks around Europe, from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic to the North and Baltic Seas. Maritime trade routes connected diverse geographical and cultural spheres, contributing to a more integrated Europe in both cultural and material terms. This volume explores networks' economic functions alongside their intercultural exchanges, contacts and practical arrangements in ports on the European coasts. The collection takes as its central question how shippers and merchants were able to connect regional and interregional trade circuits around and beyond Europe in the late medieval period. It is divided into four parts, with chapters in Part I looking across broad themes such as ships and sailing routes, maritime law, financial linkages and linguistic exchanges. In the following parts - divided into the Mediterranean, the Baltic Sea, and the Atlantic and North Seas - contributors present case studies addressing themes including conflict resolution, relations between different types of main ports and their hinterland, the local institutional arrangements supporting maritime trade, and the advantages and challenges of locations around the continent. The volume concludes with a summary that points to the extraterritorial character of trading systems during this fascinating period of expansion. Drawing together an international team of contributors, The Routledge Handbook of Maritime Trade around Europe is a vital contribution to the study of maritime history and the history of trade. It is essential reading for students and scholars in these fields.

The Routledge Handbook of Maritime Trade around Europe 1300-1600 explores the links between maritime trading networks around Europe, from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic to the North and Baltic Seas. Maritime trade routes connected diverse geographical and cultural spheres, contributing to a more integrated Europe in both cultural and material terms. This volume explores networks' economic functions alongside their intercultural exchanges, contacts and practical arrangements in ports on the European coasts. The collection takes as its central question how shippers and merchants were able to connect regional and interregional trade circuits around and beyond Europe in the late medieval period. It is divided into four parts, with chapters in Part I looking across broad themes such as ships and sailing routes, maritime law, financial linkages and linguistic exchanges. In the following parts - divided into the Mediterranean, the Baltic Sea, and the Atlantic and North Seas - contributors present case studies addressing themes including conflict resolution, relations between different types of main ports and their hinterland, the local institutional arrangements supporting maritime trade, and the advantages and challenges of locations around the continent. The volume concludes with a summary that points to the extraterritorial character of trading systems during this fascinating period of expansion. Drawing together an international team of contributors, The Routledge Handbook of Maritime Trade around Europe is a vital contribution to the study of maritime history and the history of trade. It is essential reading for students and scholars in these fields.

Based on a collaboration between historians of Chinese and European politics, Political Communication in Chinese and European History, 800-1600 offers a first comprehensive overview of current research on political communication in middle-period European and Chinese history. The chapters present new work on the sources and processes of political communication in European and Chinese history partly through juxtaposing and combining formerly separate historiographies and partly through direct comparison. Contrary to earlier comparative work on empires and state formation, which aimed to explain similarities and differences with encompassing models and new theories of divergence, the goal is to further conversations between historians by engaging regional historiographies from the bottom up.

The world of the first half of the sixteenth century was exceptionally dynamic. Voyages of discovery made the world larger; science and technology were revolutionized; Christian thought underwent a powerful renewal; the population and economy grew. And in the midst of this constellation of change, one man - the Emperor Charles V - ruled a conglomeration of territory more extensive than that previously held by any ruler in European history. What can one person, given an inordinate amount of power by quirk of fate, achieve? How much freedom did he in fact have? Did it help him reach his objectives? What unwanted results ensued from his actions? The relationship between the will of an individual and the power of structures in times of such mutability is at the core of Blockman's enquiry. He brings to the task a range of languages - without which it is scarcely possible to do justice to Charles's widespread, linguistically diverse imperium - a keen awareness of the most recent findings in modern scholarship, and the fruits of a professional lifetime's reflection.