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This book is an accessible and comprehensive study of the French wars of religion, designed specifically for undergraduate students. Drawing on the latest scholarship of a generation of social historians of the Reformation, the author presents a new analysis which goes beyond the partisan politics of noble factions and socio-economic tensions of early modern society. He argues that this long conflict was fomented by religious tensions among the population at large. While politics and socio-economic tensions were doubtlessly important, this book focuses on the social history of religion. By analysing the conflict as a cultural clash between two communities bent on defining the boundaries between the sacred and the profane in explicitly different ways, the author attempts to explain why the wars lasted for so long and why they ended in the way that they did.

This book is a 2005 edition of Mack P. Holt's classic study of the French religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Drawing on the scholarship of social and cultural historians of the Reformation, it shows how religion infused both politics and the socio-economic tensions of the period to produce a long extended civil war. Professor Holt integrates court politics and the political theory of the elites with the religious experiences of the popular classes, offering a fresh perspective on the wars and on why the French were willing to kill their neighbors in the name of religion. The book has been created specifically for undergraduates and general readers with no background knowledge of either French history or the Reformation. This edition updates the text in the light of new work published in the decade prior to publication and the 'Suggestions for further reading' has been completely re-written.

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