This second edition describes the open conflicts of the Reformation from Luther's first challenge to the uneasy peace of the 1560's.

In a preface written for the paperback edition, Professor Hay examines some of the changes in Renaissance scholarship since the first publication of this volume in 1957. Successive chapters examine the social and economic structure of a continent about to establish trade and colonies in the New World, the intellectual and artistic movements which made up the Renaissance, the position of the Church on the eve of the Reformation, the political inheritance of the Middle Ages, with its rising nation states, and the growth of the Ottoman Empire.

This volume surveys the political, military and diplomatic history of a period of changing alliances and limited and gentlemanly but frequent wars. It gives particular weight to the emergence of Prussia and Russia as European Powers and to the rivalry of France and England in America, in India and on the high seas. The economic background to these national fortunes is of increasing international trade, technological progress and colonialisation. Socially, European society slowly evolved from the domination of the aristocracy to that of urban populations and bourgeois administrators. Intellectually, the culture of Europe took on what are recognized as specifically eighteenth-century forms and ideals. From the point of view of world history this period saw the confirmation of European pre-eminence and dominion.

V.1 The renaissance 1493-1520 -- V.2 The reformation 1520-1559 -- V.5 The ascendancy of France 1648-88. -- V.7 The old regime 1713-63. -- V.8 The American and French révolution 1763-93 -- V.9 war and peace in an age of Upheaval 1793-1830. -- V.10 The zenith of European power 1830-70. -- V.11 Material progress and world-wide problems 1870-1898. -- V.12 The era of violence 1898-1945.

This volume examines the ascendancy of France during the period 1648-1688.

This volume examines the period of history which looks at counter-reformation and the price revolution, 1559-1610.

This volume examines the power of Europe from 1830 to 1870.

The rise of Great Britain and Russia is the focus of this particular volume of The New Cambridge Modern History.