In 1648, Europe was essentially a medieval society. By 1815, it was the powerhouse of the modern world. In exuberant prose, Tim Blanning investigates “the very hinge of European history” ( The New York Times ) between the end of the Thirty Y ears’ War and the Battle of Waterloo that witnessed five of the modern world’s great revolutions: scientific, industrial, American, French, and romantic. Blanning renders this vast subject digestible and absorbing by making fresh connections between the most mundane details of life and the major cultural, political, and technological transformations that birthed the modern age.

On one level a history of the Electorate of Mainz in the eighteenth century, this book also seeks to illuminate a much wider area. In particular it is intended to be a contribution to the debate on the 'German Problem' - the growing cultural and political divergence between Germany and Western Europe in the modern period. Many historians have identified the crucial phase of this development in the nineteenth century; Dr Blanning argues that the eighteenth century was of equal if not greater importance.