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History - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750) — page 3
180 public-domain history - early modern (c. 1450-1750) books, summarised. Page 3 of 4.

History of Central America, Volume 1, 1501-1530: The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume 6
Hubert Howe Bancroft
A handful of Spanish adventurers, driven by gold and glory, march across the Isthmus of Darien and the forests of Central America, upending native civilizations and battling each other for imperial spoils.

History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century, Volume 1
J. H. (Jean Henri) Merle d'Aubigné
Faith in divine grace cannot survive when human institutions demand that believers purchase their own salvation.

The Court of Philip IV.: Spain in Decadence
Martin A. S. (Martin Andrew Sharp) Hume
A proud empire crumbles under the weight of its own illusions while its courtiers indulge in extravagant spectacles and hollow pageantry.

The Conspiracy of Gianluigi Fieschi, or, Genoa in the sixteenth century
Emanuele Celesia
In the shadow of the Renaissance, a young nobleman dares to challenge the most powerful figures of his age, igniting a desperate struggle for Genoa’s lost liberty. This historical inquiry peels back the layers of a sixteenth-century political crisis to reveal the human cost of ambition and imperial intrigue.

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 36, 1649-1666: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
Unknown
These archival records document the volatile intersection of Spanish colonial ambition, religious factionalism, and the struggle for administrative control within the Philippine archipelago during the mid-seventeenth century.

A Treatise of Witchcraft
Alexander Roberts
The devil’s reach is long, yet his power is limited to the permissions granted by a higher authority. To understand his influence is to recognize the absolute necessity of anchoring one’s faith in God alone.

Chronicles of the house of Borgia
Frederick Rolfe
A sprawling, idiosyncratic defense of a maligned dynasty, this work reclaims the notorious figures of the Renaissance from centuries of hostile myth-making. It challenges the conventional image of a blood-soaked, poisoning family by meticulously re-examining the primary historical record.

History of the Great Reformation of the Sixteenth Century in Germany, Switzerland, &c., Volume 4
J. H. (Jean Henri) Merle d'Aubigné
The Reformation is not merely a theological shift, but a dramatic struggle for the soul of Europe, where the clash of kings and the conviction of reformers decide the fate of nations.

History of Friedrich II of Prussia
Thomas Carlyle
The life of a legendary monarch unfolds here, tracing the harsh, transformative crucible of his youth and the iron-willed foundations of his eventual reign. This expansive history examines the collision of private anguish and public duty, detailing the volatile, often brutal, relationship between a stern father and…

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898
Unknown
HOOK This collection of seventeenth-century colonial records offers a stark, unvarnished window into the daily friction between Spanish civil authority and the religious orders operating in the Philippine archipelago.

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898
Unknown
Colonial officials, Jesuit missionaries, and royal decree-makers scramble to defend, maintain, and govern a precarious Pacific outpost.

Queens of the Renaissance
M. Beresford Ryley
Six portraits of remarkable women trace the emergence, triumph, and spiritual fracturing of the European Renaissance through the intimate realities of private character and public trial.

The censorship of the Church of Rome and its influence upon the production and distribution of literature, volume 1 (of 2)
George Haven Putnam
A bureaucratic history of institutional fear, this study shows how the Catholic Church sought to govern the intellect of Europe through the systematically organized suppression of books.

German Culture Past and Present
Ernest Belfort Bax
The social order of medieval Europe unravels as new financial systems, peasant revolts, and religious schisms reshape the daily life and cultural trajectory of the German nation.

A Voyage to New Holland, Etc. in the Year 1699
William Dampier
A three-year voyage to chart uncharted southern waters turns into a masterclass in patient observation, tracking everything from Brazilian timber to tail-less Australian lizards.

Miscellanea Curiosa, Vol. 3: containing a collection of curious travels, voyages, and natural histories of countries as they have been delivered in to the Royal Society
Royal Society (Great Britain)
This collection captures a pivotal era of discovery, where the expanding horizons of the seventeenth-century world were cataloged with the urgent curiosity of an emerging scientific age. It serves as a repository for the reports of travelers, merchants, and scholars who sought to map both the physical geography and…

Satan's Invisible World Discovered
George Sinclair
This collection serves as a seventeenth-century polemic against skepticism, arguing that the existence of the supernatural is a prerequisite for a moral universe. It remains a grim, authoritative record of a worldview where the veil between the physical and the demonic was considered paper-thin.

Heroes of Modern Europe
Alice Birkhead
History is a gallery of human effort, where poets, reformers, and soldiers shape the continent. These figures define the spirit of their ages, revealing that heroism is born from the crucible of struggle.

A New Orchard And Garden
Lawson, William, active 1618
This 17th-century manual offers a practical and poetic guide to creating a flourishing orchard, proving that the patience required for gardening is a virtue rewarded by both fruit and peace of mind.

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898
Unknown
The history of the seventeenth-century Philippine Islands is a chronicle of fragile colonial outposts, distant imperial mandates, and the harrowing intersection of global trade and local survival.

Buffon's Natural History, Volume 03 (of 10): Containing a Theory of the Earth, a General History of Man, of the Brute Creation, and of Vegetables, Minerals, &c. &c
Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de
This sweeping inquiry into the mechanics of life challenges the dogmas of the Enlightenment, arguing that existence is not a fixed design but a fluid, mechanical dance of organic molecules.

Erasmus Against War
Desiderius Erasmus
Humanity is born for friendship and kindness, not for the slaughter of war. This timeless appeal argues that the nature of man and the teachings of Christ stand in absolute opposition to the carnage of conflict.

The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic
William Hickling Prescott
A grand, sweeping chronicle of a transformative epoch, this work captures the rise of Spain from a fractured collection of territories into a unified, formidable power under its most iconic monarchs.

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898
Unknown
The seventeenth-century Philippines emerge as a precarious frontier of the Spanish Empire, defined by the constant threat of Dutch naval blockade, the fragility of the China trade, and the grueling logistics of colonial survival. This archival collection offers a raw, unvarnished look at the administrative…

The history of the Bastile, and of its principal captives
R. A. (Richard Alfred) Davenport
The Bastille stands in history as a symbol of arbitrary tyranny, a fortress where the king’s whim could bury a man without hope of justice. This chronicle examines the lives of those who vanished behind its walls, offering a stark portrait of the fragile line between power and ruin in pre-revolutionary France.

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898
Unknown
This collection of primary documents offers an unvarnished look at the administrative, religious, and military machinery of the Spanish Philippines at the close of the sixteenth century. Through letters, reports, and royal decrees, the text reveals the day-to-day struggle to maintain a colonial outpost on the far…

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 44, 1700-1736: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
Unknown
Archival records from the early eighteenth century reveal a colonial frontier defined by fragile religious missions, volatile political violence, and the relentless, often corrupt, machinery of trans-Pacific trade. These documents illuminate the friction between imperial mandates and the harsh realities of life in…

The place of magic in the intellectual history of Europe
Lynn Thorndike
Magic is not merely a collection of ancient superstitions, but a foundational thread woven into the development of Western intellectual life. This survey traces how magical beliefs persisted alongside, and often within, the most sophisticated scientific systems of antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Discovery of Oxygen, Part 2
Carl Wilhelm Scheele
A rigorous, hands-on journey through eighteenth-century pneumatic chemistry, where simple glassware and animal bladders unlock the fundamental secrets of the atmosphere.

Pictures of German Life in the XVth, XVIth, and XVIIth Centuries, Vol. I
Gustav Freytag
Centuries of division and conflict forged a nation's soul, leaving its ordinary people to build a society from the ashes of feudalism, war, and religious schism.

The Scholemaster
Roger Ascham
A bitter debate over educational discipline in Tudor England yields a revolution in how languages are taught.

History of the Peninsular War, Volume 5 (of 6)
Robert Southey
A gritty, detailed narrative of endurance and strategy, this volume captures the peninsular conflict as a grueling war of attrition fought across shattered fortresses, mountainous passes, and politically fractured halls.

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898
Unknown
This collection of seventeenth-century archival records captures the precarious administration of the Spanish Philippines, detailing a world of colonial bureaucracy, religious mission work, and strategic naval anxiety.

A Voyage to Abyssinia
Jerónimo Lobo
A Jesuit missionary navigates the treacherous political and physical landscapes of seventeenth-century Ethiopia, documenting his desperate struggle to sustain a fragile Catholic foothold amidst shifting empires and unforgiving wilderness.

A true & exact history of the island of Barbados
Richard Ligon
This seventeenth-century account documents the rapid transformation of a Caribbean landscape into a highly organized, brutal engine of sugar production. It serves as a stark testament to the colonial ambition and human cost defining the era.

The journal of Montaigne's travels in Italy by way of Switzerland and Germany in 1580 and 1581, Volume 2 (of 3)
Michel de Montaigne
A sixteenth-century nobleman wanders through the Italian landscape, observing the quirks of local custom, the remnants of antiquity, and the persistent, unglamorous realities of his own physical ailments.

The Shakespeare Garden
Esther Singleton
This exploration unearths the botanical world of Elizabethan England, tracing the flowers, herbs, and formal designs that inspired the playwright’s most enduring imagery.

Luther's Little Instruction Book: The Small Catechism of Martin Luther
Martin Luther
A concise guide for the home, this manual distills complex theological doctrines into simple, practical instructions meant for daily family life. It serves as a foundational text for religious instruction and personal conduct.

A Decade of Italian Women, vol. 2 (of 2)
Thomas Adolphus Trollope
This work recovers the lives of four prominent Italian women, tracing their influence through the intellectual, social, and political upheavals of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It offers a candid look at the friction between individual ambition and the rigid structures of the Church and state.

British Campaigns in Flanders 1690-1794: Being Extracts from "A History of the British Army"
Fortescue, J. W. (John William), Sir
This volume serves as a focused, scholarly distillation of over a century of British military engagement in the Low Countries. By isolating these specific campaigns, it provides a sharp lens through which to view the evolution of the British Army from the late seventeenth through the late eighteenth century.

Some Forerunners of Italian Opera
W. J. (William James) Henderson
The story of music’s evolution is rarely a clean break; it is a long, tangled vine of experiments, pageants, and missteps that finally bloomed into the structured grandeur of the opera.

On the History of Gunter's Scale and the Slide Rule During the Seventeenth Century
Florian Cajori
Long before digital computation, mathematical minds turned logarithmic scales into physical instruments, sparking an intense seventeenth-century debate over who first brought the slide rule into being.

The Close of the Middle Ages, 1272-1494, 3rd Ed
Lodge, Richard, Sir
Two centuries of European turmoil transform medieval feudalism into modern statecraft as kingdoms, popes, and merchant leagues fight for survival.

On the manner of negotiating with princes: On the uses of diplomacy
Monsieur de (François) Callières
A practical treatise on statecraft argues that quiet persuasion, disciplined self-control, and the methodical gathering of intelligence achieve far more lasting political dominance than brute military force or ostentatious display.

Tudor school-boy life: the dialogues of Juan Luis Vives
Juan Luis Vives
This collection of dialogues offers a rare, intimate window into the daily life and intellectual expectations of a sixteenth-century schoolboy. It serves as both a primary source for Renaissance history and an engaging, if instructional, literary work.

History of the Conquest of Mexico
William Hickling Prescott
A sweeping chronicle of the fall of an empire, this narrative documents the collision between the Spanish expedition and the Aztec civilization, culminating in the brutal siege of their capital.

Printing and the Renaissance: A paper read before the Fortnightly Club of Rochester, New York
John Rothwell Slater
Printing was not the spark that ignited the Renaissance; rather, the intellectual hunger of the era forged the printing press as its essential instrument of change.

Annals of the Turkish Empire, from 1591 to 1659
Mustafa Naima
A panoramic view of an empire in transition, these chronicles chart seven decades of political upheaval, military campaigns, and the relentless machinery of court intrigue within the Ottoman world.