What is Early Modern History?

 What is Early Modern History? offers a concise guide to investigations of the era from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries and an entry-point to larger questions about how we divide and organize the past and how the discipline of history has evolved. Merry Wiesner-Hanks showcases the new research and innovative methods that have altered our understanding of this fascinating period. She examines various subfields and approaches in early modern history, and the marks of modernity that scholars have highlighted in these, from individualism to the Little Ice Age. Moving beyond Europe, she surveys the growth of the Atlantic World and global history, exploring key topics such as the Columbian Exchange, the slave trade, cultural interactions and blending, and the environment. She also considers popular and public representations of the early modern period, which are often how students - and others - first become curious. Elegantly written and passionately argued, What is Early Modern History? provides an essential invitation to the field for both students and scholars.

Review: "A path-breaking and uniquely compact guide that offers readers a refreshing introduction that ranges from Columbus to Creolization, Elizabeth I to the environment, and the Renaissance to the Red Atlantic. It takes the real temperature of an entire field to examine its unique vantage point onto world history." Ulinka Rublack, University of Cambridge "Merry Wiesner-Hanks's survey of early modern history proves that good things can come in small packages. Written in clear, yet elegant prose, this slim volume offers a well-informed and up-to-date discussion of a historical period and how it evolved. The author seamlessly blends history and historiography." Mary Lindemann, University of Miami