The Thirty Years War provides the reader with not just with an analysis of the origins of the conflict and of the structure of warfare but also with a succinct narrative account concentrating on the key dates and major turning points of the war.
Ronald G. Asch is a graduate of Tübingen University where he also completed his doctorate (1982) on the counts of Fürstenberg in the 16th and 17th centuries after having studied earlier in Kiel and in Cambridge (Clare Hall).
An ambitious effort, but sadly not quite convincing. Too much jumping back and forth, and not enough analysis - perhaps to be expected when trying to fit such a complex subject into 200 pages. Perhaps a thematic approach would have worked better.
Cursory, with disorientating jumps foreword and backwards in time (owing to the four-particular-dates structure). Nevertheless, a useful book that successfully captures the main causes, belligerents, war goals, and effects of the Thirty Years War.
At 200 pages this book barely qualifies as a primer for this epochal conflict in Central Europe. Names, places, dates and important treaties are thrown out at the reader at a frantic pace. The book has its place as an appetizer for someone who wishes further study into what is essentially a 17th century World War.