CHAPTER I. THE COUNTRIES OF EUROPE AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY The New National Monarchies The Old Holy Roman Empire The City-States Northern and Eastern Europe in the year 1500
CHAPTER II. THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION Agriculture in the Sixteenth Century Towns on the Eve of the Commercial Revolution Trade Prior to the Commercial Revolution The Age of Exploration Establishment of Colonial Empires Effects of the Commercial Revolution
CHAPTER III. EUROPEAN POLITICS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY The Emperor Charles V Philip II and the Predominance of Spain
CHAPTER IV. THE PROTESTANT REVOLT AND THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION The Catholic Church at the Opening of the Sixteenth Century The Protestant Revolt Lutheranism Calvinism Anglicanism The Catholic Reformation Summary of the Religious Revolution in the Sixteenth Century
CHAPTER V. THE CULTURE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY The Invention of Printing Humanism Art in the Sixteenth Century National Literatures in the Sixteenth Century Beginnings of Modern Natural Science
PART II
DYNASTIC AND COLONIAL RIVALRY
CHAPTER VI. THE GROWTH OF ABSOLUTISM IN FRANCE AND THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN BOURBONS AND HABSBURGS, 1589-1661 Growth of Absolutism in France: Henry IV, Richelieu, and Mazarin Struggle between Bourbons and Habsburgs: The Thirty Years' War