The World in Flames

A Global History of the Seven Years' War

Marian Füssel, Brían Hanrahan

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Hardback

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German

Columbia University Press
02 December 2025

General & world history; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900; Military history; Battles & campaigns

Series: Columbia Studies in International and Global History

In the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), two European rivalries-between England and France and between Prussia and Austria-collided to spark a global conflagration. In the United States, it is known as the French and Indian War, a precursor to the Revolutionary War. In India, by contrast, it marked a new stage on the path toward British colonial rule. The war saw Spain's decline and Russia's rise; territories from Quebec to the Philippines changed hands. From Europe to the Americas, Africa, and South Asia, people across continents were swept up in clashes that began in faraway places and spread like wildfire.

The World in Flames is a bottom-up history of the Seven Years' War, exploring this epochal conflict from the perspective of contemporaries around the globe. Drawing on hundreds of eyewitness accounts, Marian Füssel offers a sweeping portrait of warfare and everyday life during the cataclysm. He vividly narrates battles and sieges from the viewpoints of bakers, generals, and everyone in between, tracing the roles of mercenaries and trading companies as well as regular troops. Füssel emphasizes how contemporaries perceived and understood the global nature of the conflict. At once a media war and an economic war for commodities such as sugar and fur, a war of emerging nationalism and a last religious war, the Seven Years' War was a laboratory of modernity, combining the old world and the new. A groundbreaking, world-spanning microhistory, this book shows us the first truly global military conflict in a new light.

By: Marian Füssel
Translated by: Brían Hanrahan
Imprint: Columbia University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780231202404
ISBN 10: 0231202407
Series: Columbia Studies in International and Global History
Pages: 712
Publication Date: 02 December 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Translator’s Preface Preface: A Global Conflict in Close-Up 1. Geopolitics Between Reich and Empire 2. Sparking the Flame 3. A War Without Fronts: The German Theater 4. 1757: The Year of Battles 5. Everyday Life in Wartime 6. 1758: The Fighting Spreads 7. 1759: Annus Mirabilis 8. As Mighty As the Sword: The Media War 9. Urban Life in a State of Exception 10. 1761: New Alliances, Missed Opportunities 11. Mosquitoes and Monsoons: The Grab for Spain’s Colonies 12. A Second Miracle 13. 1763: Peace at Last 14. Outcomes of the War Epilogue Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

Marian Füssel is chair professor of early modern history with special focus on the history of science at the University of Göttingen and a member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Lower Saxony. Brían Hanrahan is a writer, scholar, and broadcaster who has translated ten books from German to English.

Reviews for The World in Flames: A Global History of the Seven Years' War

An exciting new history of the Seven Years' War as a global conflict, combining lucid analysis of the main events and their outcomes with sympathetic treatment of those caught up in the struggle. Particular attention is paid to how contemporaries perceived the complex interactions between the war’s many theaters and how the conflict’s expansive character changed how they saw the world. -- Peter Wilson, author of Iron and Blood: A Military History of the German-speaking Peoples since 1500 Ranging across this great global conflict with a wide perspective, awesome mastery of the sources, and a lively pen, Marian Füssel delivers a feast of information, insight, and entertainment. -- Tim Blanning, author of Frederick the Great: King of Prussia Füssel lights up what we thought was a well-researched conflict. He brings to bear newly discovered writings of ordinary people, soldiers, civilians, pastors, tradesmen, aristocratic ladies, and ordinary women as they respond to the devastation around them. The war is seen as not only a military conflict but also a media event. A notably clear account of interlocking conflicts and the virtually simultaneous making of their memorialization. -- Dorinda Outram, author of Four Fools in the Age of Reason: Laughter, Cruelty, and Power in Early Modern Germany