One of the fiercest and most wide-ranging debates in historical circles during the last decade has concerned the theory that, throughout Europe, the seventeenth century was a period of crisis so significant and intense that it could be labeled a "General Crisis".

This updated volume takes the still acrimonious debate up to today. Geoffrey Parker and Lesley Smith have collected ten important subsequent essays concerning the social, economic and political crises which affected Europe and Asia in the mid-seventeenth century. This edition of The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century contains fresh research, new perspectives and completely updated bibliographies and index.