The Berkshire Studies in European History GENERAL EDITORS RICHARD A. NEWHALL SIDNEY R. PACKARD The Berkshire Studies in European History Under the Editorship of RICHARD A. NEWHALL SIDNEY R. PACKARD Historical Geography of Europe By J. K. WRIGHT, American Geographical Society The Crusades By RICHARD A. NEWHALL, Williams College By LAURENCE B. PACKARD, Amherst College By FREDERICK C. DIETZ, University of Illinois PREFACE THE college teacher of general European history is always confronted with the task of finding adequate reading for his classes which is neither too specialized and technical nor too elementary. For many topics, including several of the greatest importance, no such material is at the moment available. Moreover, in too many instances, good reading which undeniably does exist is in the form of a chapter in a larger work and is therefore too expensive for adoption as required reading under normal conditions. The Berkshire Studies in European History have been planned to meet this situation. The topics selected for treatment are those on which there is no easily accessible reading of appropriate length adequate for the needs of a course in general European history. The authors, all experienced teachers, are in nearly every instance actively engaged in the class room and intimately acquainted with its problems. They will avoid a merely elementary presentation of facts, giving instead an interpretive discussion suited to the more mature point of view of college students. No pretense is made, of course, that these Studies are contributions to historical literature in the scholarly sense. Therefore the trappings of scholarship, such as foot-notes and bibliographies, have been purposely omitted. Each author, nevertheless, is sufficiently a specialist in the period of which he writes to be familiar with the sources and to have used the latest scholarly contributions to his subject. Each Study is designed as a week's reading. The division into three approximately equal chapters, many of them self |