Book Review of The Great Elector

Interesting study about Frederick William, the Great Elector of Brandenburg-Prussia, and his involvement in seventeenth-century wars.

International History

Derek McKay. The Great Elector. Profiles in Power series. Harlow, England: Longman, 2001. ISBN 978-0-582-49482-4. Notes. Maps. Tables. Chronology. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xiii, 286. £16.99 (paperback).

Dr Derek McKay, retired Senior Lecturer in International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science, provides an outstanding biography of Frederick William of Hohenzollern.  McKay is known for his published doctoral thesis Allies of Convenience: Diplomatic Relations between Great Britain and Austria, 1714-1719 (1986), important studies Prince Eugene of Savoy (1977) and The Rise of the Great Powers, 1648-1815 (co-authored with Hamish M. Scott) (1983),  along with journal articles on diplomatic history in the early eighteenth century.

Frederick William ruled over Brandenburg-Prussia for forty-eight years.  At his accession in 1640, Frederick William became the Margrave and Elector over the scattered Hohenzollern lands that were devastated in the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) and occupied by Swedish forces.  He immediately negotiated an armistice with Sweden, and…

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Book Review of Poltava 1709: The Battle and the Myth

International History

Serhii Plokhy, editor. Poltava 1709: The Battle and the Myth. Harvard Papers in Ukrainian Studies series. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute Harvard University, 2012. ISBN 978-1-932650-09-9. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Index. Pp. xxv, 703. $29.95 (paperback).

The battle of Poltava (1709) fought in the Ukraine between the forces of Peter I of Russia (ruled 1682-1725) and Charles XII of Sweden (ruled 1697-1718) is viewed as a decisive event in the Great Northern War (1700-1721).  Charles XII had temporarily defeated a coalition of Denmark, Russia, and Poland-Saxony at the start of this long conflict.  However, after mopping up in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Swedish monarch turned his attention once again towards Russia.  The Swedish invasion was stopped by the Russians at Poltava in 1709, and Charles XII was forced to retreat with the remnants of his army into Ottoman territory.  Russia would be recognized as a Great Power in the Baltic Region.  The…

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Book Review of Strategy in the American War of Independence: A Global Approach

International History

Donald Stoker, Kenneth J. Hagan, and Michael T. McMaster, editors. Strategy in the American War of Independence: A Global Approach. Cass Military Studies series. Abingdon, England: Routledge, 2010. ISBN 978-0-415-36734-9. Notes. Tables. Appendices. Bibliography. Index. Pp. xvii, 244. $145.00 (hardcover).

The international aspect of the American War of Independence (1775-1783) has traditionally been downplayed by American historians.  Important exceptions would be Samuel Flagg Bemis’ The Diplomacy of the American Revolution (1957)  and Jonathan R. Dull’s A Diplomatic History of the Revolution (1985).  In Strategy in the American War of Independence: A Global Approach, an international group of experts contribute essays that show the global and multilateral angles of the conflict from a strategic perspective.  The authors demonstrate that the American struggle for independence “was inescapably enmeshed in the military and diplomatic affairs of the rest of the world” (p.xvii).  The American War of Independence was a very complex global conflict.

American strategy was…

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Book Review of The Nine Years’ War and the British Army, 1688-1697: The Operations in the Low Countries

International History

John Childs. The Nine Years’ War and the British Army, 1688-1697: The Operations in the Low Countries. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 1991. ISBN 978-0-71903-461-9. Maps. Notes. Index. Pp. xii, 372.

The Nine Years’ War was a major conflict between Louis XIV of France and a European-wide coalition consisting of Austria and the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch Republic, Spain, Britain, and Savoy.  It was fought on the European continent and the surrounding seas, Ireland, and in North America.  It began with the Sun King’s invasion of Germany in 1688.  In this study, Dr John Childs, Emeritus Professor of Military History at the University of Leeds in England, examines the British army and military operations in the Low Countries against Louis XIV’s army in the Nine Years’ War.  Childs is well-known for such studies as Armies and Warfare in Europe, 1648-1789 (1982), Warfare in the Seventeenth Century (2001), The Army of Charles II (1976), The…

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Europe in the Age of Louis XIV (1661-1715): A Bibliography of Diplomatic and Military Studies

Useful list of books, journal articles, essays in English about European warfare and diplomacy during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

International History

INTERNATIONAL POLITICS AND WARFARE IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES AND EARLY MODERN EUROPE

A Bibliography of Diplomatic and Military Studies

by William Young

Chapter 6 – Europe in the Age of Louis XIV (1661-1715)

Europe in the Age of Louis XIV (1661-1715): A Bibliography (pdf)

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