East-Central Europe in Transition From the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century - Studies in Modern Capitalism

This volume presents a general view of the history of an important part of late medieval and early modern Europe which has been undeservedly neglected in the West: the kingdoms of Poland, Hungary and Bohemia, roughly speaking the area covered by present-day Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland, but overlapping into East Germany, the USSR and Yugoslavia. As the authors suggest, this region, despite significant local variations, had a unity of its own between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries. The twelve specially commissioned essays are by leading Polish and Hungarian specialists, who deal with the geography and the economic, social, political and cultural history of the region, with special emphasis on economic and social structures and trends. Much of the information provided has previously been unavailable in English, and several revisionist interpretations are offered.