In a small space the Oxford-educated historian, Mary Hollings, provides a panoramic view of a tumultuous age. We meet Cesare Borgia and Savonarola, the universal spider, Louis XI, Henry IV, France's best-beloved king, Sweden’s wise and courageous Queen Christina, and great generals, like Albrecht von Wallenstein and Gustavus Adolphus. The twin ideals of imperial unity and of one true church led to two centuries of unremitting warfare from the fertile plains of Italy, through the alpine passes, across France, the Netherlands, the German states, to Poland and Bohemia. In the end Spain has begun her decline, Italy and the Holy Roman Empire are in fragments, and France, thanks to the incomparable statesmanship of Richelieu, is the ascendant power.