John Stoye was formerly a Fellow and Tutor of Magdalen College, Oxford and the author of English Travellers Abroad 1604-1667 (1952), The Siege of Vienna (1964) and Marsigli's Europe 1680-1730 (1994).

"A well-written, sure, compact narrative which does ample justice to every significant aspect of late seventeenth-century Europe." Times Literary Supplement

• List of Maps. Preface.1. A New Stability at the Centre.2. The Crises of Eastern Europe.3. The Eclipse of France.4. The Survival of Spain.5. The Standstill of the North.6. The Minor Experiments in Autocracy.7. The Major Experiment: France.8. The European Mind, 1640-70.9. The Diplomacy and Warfare of Louis XIV, 1660-80.10. The Ottoman Empire and its Impact on Europe, 1672-88.11. The Uneasy Calm of Western Europe, 1678-88.12. Epilogue: The Interlock of 1688.The Ruling Dynasties.Further Reading.Index.