General Editor Tim Blanning, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
From the EditorThe problems of writing a satisfactory history of Europe are many, but the most intractable is clearly the reconciliation of depth with breadth. The historian who can write with equal authority about every part of the continent in all its various aspects has not yet been born. Two main solutions have been tried in the past: either a single scholar has attempted to go it alone, presenting an unashamedly personal view of a period, or teams of specialists have been enlisted to write what are in effect anthologies. The first offers a coherent perspective but unequal coverage, the second sacrifices unity for the sake of expertise.This new series is
underpinned by the belief that it is the second way that has the fewest disadvantages and that even those can be diminished if not neutralized by close cooperation between the individual contributors under the directing supervision of the volume editor.
All the contributors to every volume in this series have read each others chapters, have met to discuss problems of overlap and omission, and have then redrafted as part of a truly collective exercise. To strengthen coherence further, the editor has written an introduction and conclusion, weaving the separate strands together to form a single cord. In this exercise, the brevity promised by the adjective short in the series title has been an asset. The need to be concise has concentrated everyones minds on what really mattered in the period. No attempt has been made to cover every angle of every topic in every country. What this series does provide is a short but sharp and deep entry into the history of Europe in all its most important aspects. T.C.W.Blanning, Sidney Sussex
College, Cambridge
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