The Thirty Years War [antikvár]

FOREWORD It is eleven years since this book was first published. It was written in London under the advancing shadow of the Second World War, and it may be that the apprehensions of those years can be felt vibrating from time to time in its pages. The historian, concerned as he is with the most vital of all studies, is often more subject than he realizes to the electric currents of contemporary mood. Confronted with a book written ten years ago, the writer would indeed be self-satisfied who did not see blemishes, but I do not think there is anything that I would substantially alter. In the last decade Great Britain and the United States of America have grown together as never before. In the last decade the United States has with unexampled generosity accepted full and weighty responsibility in the affairs of our troubled European continent. I hope that this book may in some way help to explain to American readers and students some of the background of the complex European heritage, and do its small part in creating further understanding between peoples. C. V. W. London, June 1949.