Renaissance and Reformation France: 1500-1648 (Short Oxford History of France) [Paperback]

Mack P. Holt (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0198731655 | ISBN-13: 978-0198731658 | Publication Date: October 3, 2002

This volume brings together an international team of experts who have synthesized and summarized the most recent research on French history of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Using a topical approach to provide broad thematic coverage of the period from 1500 to 1660, each chapter focuses on a specific area of French history: politics and the state, the economy, society and culture, religion, gender and the family, and France's burgeoning overseas empire, which was constructed in this period. The result is the most up-to-date synthesis of this period, showing how recent scholarship has significantly revised the traditional narrative of French history.

Editorial Reviews

Review

this book represents a welcome contribution to the existing literature...recent scholarship is effectively incorporated into a fluent and accessible narrative. Above all the volume displays a remarkable coherence, in part because of the decision to focus on the sixteenth-century wars of religion, and the prominence given to religion more generally...this volume is set to become a standard text for any course on the period' Penny Roberts, University of Warwick, History --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Mack P. Holt is Professor of History at George Mason University. His work has won prizes from the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, the National Huguenot Society, and the Southern Historical Association. He has served on the editorial board of French Historical Studies, and in 1999 was the president of the Society for French Historical Studies. He has previously taught at Harvard and Vanderbilt universities.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (October 3, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198731655
• ISBN-13: 978-0198731658
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #381,526 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very readable, July 30, 2004

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Polymath (Ithaca NY USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Renaissance and Reformation France: 1500-1648 (Short Oxford History of France) (Paperback)

Though I generally prefer narrative history, and this book includes very little narrative beyond its chapter on the Wars of Religion, I found all the various authors' styles so attractive that I was sucked in to reading the thematic material in the rest of the book as well! Therefore I highly recommend the book. I've recently read a more detailed book on the Wars of Religion, but found the material here a very clear outline, particularly in conjunction with the several page chronology in the back of the book which expands on the text material, not only for the Wars of Religion, but for the entire period covered in the text. The brief section of the French experience overseas was especially well handled--I felt I learned the key points for understanding this time period in just a few pages. And as implied above, I also enjoyed reading and learned a lot from the many sections on economics, politics, and social trends. As well, most of the locales mentioned in the text are actually on maps included in the book, which can sometimes not be the case with history books. One of the best book I've read on Early Modern Europe.