The French Wars of Religion, 1562–1629 (New Approaches to European History, Series Number 8) - Hardcover

"One real strength of the book is that Roberts places her study of Troyes in the wider context of the provincial and national history of the wars and compares her findings in Troyes with what is known about wartime experience in other urban centers...An equally significant aspect of the book is Robert's examination of the Reformed church in Troyes and its congregation." Annette Finely-Croswhite, Sixteenth Century Journal

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.