The Cambridge Modern History

The Cambridge Modern History is a comprehensive modern history of the world, beginning with the 15th century age of Discovery, published by the Cambridge University Press in the United Kingdom and also in the United States.

The first series, planned by Lord Acton and edited by him with Stanley Mordaunt Leathes, Sir Adolphus William Ward and G. W. Prothero, was launched in 1902 and totalled fourteen volumes, the last of them being an historical atlas which appeared in 1912. The period covered was from 1450 to 1910.^[1] Each volume includes an extensive bibliography.

A second series, The New Cambridge Modern History, now covering the years 1450 to 1945, appeared in fourteen volumes between 1957 and 1979, again concluding with an atlas.

The Cambridge Modern History, 1902–1912

A map of the dominions of Charles V, from the 1912 atlas

The original Cambridge Modern History was planned by Lord Acton, who during 1899 and 1900 gave much of his time to coordinating the project, intended to be a monument of objective, detailed, and collaborative scholarship.^[2] Acton was Regius professor of modern history at Cambridge, and a fellow of All Souls, Oxford. He had previously established the English Historical Review in 1886 and had an exalted reputation.^[3]

The new work was published in fourteen volumes between 1902 and 1912, in the British Isles by the Cambridge University Press and in the USA by Macmillan & Co. of New York. Written mostly by English scholars, the first twelve volumes dealt with the history of the world from 1450 up to 1910.^[1] The final volume, numbered 12, was The Latest Age and appeared in 1910.^[4] There then followed two supplemental volumes.^[1]

The history was later followed by similar multi-volume works for the earlier ages, namely the Cambridge Ancient History and the Cambridge Medieval History.^[5] As the first of such histories, it later came to be seen as establishing a tradition of collaborative scholarship.^[6]

A second edition of the atlas (volume XIV) was published in 1924.^[7]

Volumes published

I. The Renaissance (1902)

II. The Reformation: The end of the Middle Ages (1903)

III. The Wars of Religion (1904)

IV. The Thirty Years War (1906)

V. The Age of Louis XIV (1908)

VI. The Eighteenth Century (1909)

VII. The United States (1903)

VIII. The French Revolution (1904)

IX. Napoleon (1906)

X. The Restoration (1907)

XI. The Growth of Nationalities (1909)

XII. The Latest Age (1910)

XIII. Tables and General Index (1911)

This volume includes

• A four-page addendum, written by Ernest Alfred Benians, to Chapter 9 of Volume 6: Naval Operations in the Period of the Seven Years' War
• Genealogical Tables and Lists
  • 1. Genealogical Tables of Ruling and Noble Houses (112 tables)
  • 2. Lists of Spiritual Princes, Elected Sovereigns, Etc. (28 lists)
  • 3. Lists of Parliaments, General Councils, Etc. (6 lists)
• General Index to all volumes

XIV. Atlas (1912, 2nd ed. 1924)

A map of the Franco-Prussian War from the 1912 atlas

This volume begins with an extensive introduction to the maps, written by Ernest Alfred Benians. It is divided into several sections:

• I. Europe in the Fifteenth Century
• II. The Age of Habsburg Power and of the Reformation
• III. The Rise of France and Sweden
• IV. The Formation of the Great Powers of the Eighteenth Century
• V. The Age of the Revolution and of Napoleon
• VI. Since 1815

Except for the first, each is in turn subsectioned for Europe and "Greater Europe", with the latter term referring mostly to the colonial empires. A separate index is provided for the introduction.

There are 141 maps in this volume. Two-page maps are bound in such a way as to prevent information from being lost in the gutter between pages. The concluding index gives the latitude and longitude of the places named.

The New Cambridge Modern History, 1957–1979

A new version of the history appeared in fourteen volumes between the 1950s and the 1970s.^[5] It introduced a wide range of new scholarship and with The Shifting Balance of World Forces 1898–1945 it brought the period covered up to the end of the Second World War. Its preface is by Sir George Norman Clark.^[8]

The New Cambridge Modern History has been described as "a comprehensive examination of the political, economic, social, and cultural development of the world from 1493 to 1945".^[9]

As with the first series, the final volume is an atlas. Some volumes have appeared in revised editions.

Volumes published

I. The Renaissance, 1493-1520 (1957)^[10]

George Richard Potter^[11] & Denys Hay, eds.

• Hans Baron, chapter 3, 'Fifteenth-century civilisation and the Renaissance'
• Rudolf Wittkower, 'The Arts in Western Europe: Italy' (pp. 127–153)
• Leopold Ettlinger, 'The Arts in Western Europe: Northern Europe' (pp. 153–165)
• Harold Lawton, 'The Arts in Western Europe: Vernacular Literature in Western Europe'

II. The Reformation, 1520-1559 (1958, new ed. 1990)

Geoffrey Rudolph Elton, ed.

III. The Counter-Reformation and price revolution, 1559-1610 (1968)^[12]

R. B. Wernham, ed.

IV. The Decline of Spain and the Thirty Years War 1609-48/59 (1970)

J. P. Cooper, ed.

• Roland Mousnier, 'French Institutions and Society, 1610-1661'

V. The Ascendancy of France 1648-88 (1961)

F. L. Carsten

VI. The rise of Great Britain and Russia, 1688-1715/25 (1970)^[13]

J. S. Bromley, ed.

VII. The Old Regime, 1713-1763 (1957, new ed. 1996)^[14]

J. O. Lindsay, ed.

VIII. The American and French Revolutions 1763-93 (1965)

A. Goodwin

IX. War and peace in an age of upheaval, 1793-1830 (1965)^[15]

Charles William Crawley, ed.

X. The zenith of European power 1830-70 (1960)^[16]

J. P. T. Bury, ed.

• Michael Lewis, 'Armed Forces and the Art of War, 1830-1870'

XI. Material Progress and World-Wide Problems 1870-1898 (1962)

F. H. Hinsley

XII. The Shifting Balance of World Forces 1898-1945 (second edition, The Era of Violence (1968)

C. L. Mowat

XIII. Companion Volume (1979)

Peter Burke

XIV. Atlas (1970)

H. C. Darby & Harold Fullard,

Notes

References

• G. N. Clark, 'The Origins of the Cambridge Modern History', in Cambridge Historical Journal, VIII, 2 (1945), pp. 57–64

External links

• Cambridge Modern History
• New Cambridge Modern History