1666 The Dawn of a New Era 1250-1453, by Edward P. Cheyney (read 24 Oct 1981) This is the first volume of a series of books entitled "The Rise of Modern Europe." This volume covers the years indicated. Though it is a survey book, its period is short enough so that it really wasn't too bad, and in general I enjoyed it. it was written in 1936, so its footnotes are to old books, and while the bibliography was revised in 1957, there still is the feeling that so much good work has been done since that maybe it is out of date. Its treatment of the various matters concerned--such as the expansion of trade, the development of representative government, popular insurrections, the 100 Years War, the weakening of the Papacy, the spread of heresy, and the advance of the Turks--are fairly good. The bibliography so often says "The best treatment is" and then gives a book not in English--and I keep wondering why more books are not translated into English.

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