Great Events from History: The Seventeenth Century, 1601-1700, is the fourth installment in the ongoing Great Events from History series, which was initiated in 2004 with the two-volume Great Events from History: The Ancient World, Prehistory-476, followed in Spring 2005 with The Middle Ages, 477-1453, and in Fall 2005 with The Renaissance & Early Modern Era, 1454-1600. When completed, the series will extend through the twentieth century; subsequent volumes will address The Eighteenth Century, The Nineteenth Century, and The Twentieth Century.Like the rest of the series, the current volumes represent both a revision and a significant expansion of the twelve-volume Great Events from History (1972-1980), incorporating essays from the Chronology of European History: 15,000 B.C. to 1997 (3 vols., 1997), Great Events from History: North American Series, Revised Edition (4 vols., 1997), and Great Events from History: Modern European Series (3 vols., 1973).Each installment in the new series is being enlarged with a significant amount of new material—often more than half the original contents. The Seventeenth Century joins more than 236 new essays—commissioned especially for the new series and appearing for the first time—to 78 previously published core entries for a total of 314 essays on the century’s major events. In addition, the new series features expanded and updated bibliographies, internal and external cross-references, a section containing maps of the world during the century, new appendices and indexes, plus numerous sidebars, quotations from primary source documents, maps, and illustrations throughout.