In 1640 Europe was still a term without precise political significance. During the ensuing years, as frontiers were delineated in diplomatic exchanges of an increasingly sophisticated kind, the concept of Europe came to mean more. Geoffrey Treasure provides a full account of the European experience during this period of growth when so much that we can identify as `modern' began to take shape. He traces the evolution of society through detailed studies of the people, their physical environment, collective and corporate interests, attitudes and beliefs. Throughout, his central theme is the growth of the state, from the disorderly aftermath of the Thirty Years War to the beginning of the decade that was to prove the last of the ancien regime. Economic aspects of the period, its wars and diplomacy, political ideas and trends are all analysed within this context, while one important chapter deals with religion and another with the intellectual revolution and the origins of modern science.