The second edition of this best-selling textbook is thoroughly updated to include expanded coverage of the late eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, and incorporates recent advances in gender history, global connections and cultural analysis. It features summaries, timelines, maps, illustrations and discussion questions to support the student. Enhanced online content and sections on sources and methodology give students the tools they need to study early modern European history.

Leading historian Merry Wiesner-Hanks skilfully balances breadth and depth of coverage to create a strong narrative, paying particular attention to the global context of European developments. She integrates discussion of gender, class, regional and ethnic differences across the entirety of Europe and its overseas colonies as well as the economic, political, religious and cultural history of the period.