In the Spring of 1813, the French army was just a shadow of the Grande Armée that had travelled to Moscow a year earlier. So for his new German campaign, Napoleon quickly needed a new army. Again conscripts were summoned throughout the French Empire.

The same applied to 24-year-old medical student Carolus Blomme from rural Flanders. He was not called up for the army, but as a surgeon in the service de santé, Napoleon’s military medical service. Carolus travelled via Mainz and Dresden to L...

Georg Marggrafe (1610-1643) is today hailed as the principal author of an influential account of the natural history of Northern Brazil and as compiler of the first accurate map of the area, which is considered as one of the most elegant products of seventeenth-century Dutch cartography. But initial he had the ambition to become known in astronomy. With the support Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, then governor-general of colonial Dutch Brazil, he built in Recife the first European-style astr...

A fully updated fourth edition written by a team of specialists. Enabling students to place early modern Europe within a global context and to see how Europe interacted with the broader early modern world through the exchange of ideas and goods. New chapters on Environment and Food and Drink Cultures which provides students and lecturers with a narrative history and new examples in these fields at an introductory level.

The companion website now includes a primary source resource section with...

Many of the most significant studies devoted to Ambrogio Spinola have focused on one particular aspect of his life: his successful military career. This volume, through its interdisciplinary and cultural approach, breaks open this all too narrow perspective and expands our understanding of Spinola and his world. As a great military strategist and Catholic knight, entrepreneur in the international finance market, courtier and diplomat, Spinola was certainly a Genoese, but he was also a member ...