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In Our Time: The Thirty Years War

Listener Week 2018

The Thirty Years War

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, The Thirty Years War

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the devastating war across the Holy Roman Empire 1618-1648

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a topic suggested by listeners: the war which was centred on the Holy Roman Empire from 1618 and was unequalled in scale until C20th

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the war in Europe which begain in 1618 and continued on such a scale and with such devastation that its like was not seen for another three hundred years. It pitched Catholics against Protestants, Lutherans against Calvinists and Catholics against Catholics across the Holy Roman Empire, drawing in their neighbours and it lasted for thirty gruelling years, from the Defenestration of Prague to the Peace of Westphalia of 1648.  Many more civilians died than soldiers, and famine was so great that even cannibalism was excused. This topic was chosen from several hundred suggested by listeners this autumn.

The image above is a detail from a painting of The Battle of White Mountain on 7-8 November 1620, by Pieter Snayers (1592-1667)

With

Peter Wilson
Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford

Ulinka Rublack
Professor of Early Modern European History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of St John’s College

And

Toby Osborne
Associate Professor in History at Durham University


Producer: Simon Tillotson

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