As to why the author has preferred to begin the story of modern Europe with the sixteenth century, rather than with the thirteenth or with the French Revolution, the reader is specially referred to the _Introduction_. It has seemed to the author that particularly from the Commercial Revolution of the sixteenth century dates the remarkable and steady evolution of that powerful middle class--the bourgeoisie-- which has done more than all other classes put together to condition the progress of the several countries of modern Europe and to create the life and thought of the present generation throughout the world. The rise of the bourgeoisie is the great central theme of modern history; it is the great central theme of this book. Not so very long ago distinguished historians were insisting that the state, as the highest expression of man's social instincts and as the immediate concern of all human beings, is the only fit subject of historical study, and that history, therefore, must be simply "past politics"; under their influence most textbooks became compendiums of data about kings and constitutions, about rebellions and battles. More recently historians of repute, as well as eminent economists, have given their attention and patronage to painstaking investigations of how, apart from state action, man in the past has toiled or traveled or done the other ordinary things of everyday life; and the influence of such scholars has served to provide us with a considerable number of convenient manuals on special phases of social history. Yet more recently several writers of textbooks have endeavored to combine the two tendencies and to present in a single volume both political and social facts, but it must be confessed that sometimes these writers have been content to tell the old political tale in orthodox manner and then to append a chapter or two of social miscellany, whose connection with the body of their book is seldom apparent to the student. The present volume represents an effort really to combine political and social history in one synthesis: the author, quite convinced of the importance of the view that political activities constitute the most perfect expression of man's social instincts and touch mankind most universally, has not neglected to treat of monarchs and parliaments, of democracy and nationalism; at the same time he has cordially accepted the opinion that political activities are determined largely by economic and social needs and ambitions; and accordingly he has undertaken not only to incorporate at fairly regular intervals such chapters as those on the Commercial Revolution, Society in the Eighteenth Century, the Industrial Revolution, and Social Factors, 1870-1914, but also to show in every part of the narrative the economic aspects of the chief political facts.