Using the prism of DÜrer's woodcut, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Andrew Cunningham and Ole Grell offer a new and exciting interpretation of European history in the period 1490 to 1648. DÜrer's image came to characterize the outlook of most early modern Europeans, who saw repeated episodes of war, epidemics and famine as indicating the imminent end of the world. Lavishly illustrated with fascinating contemporary images, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse brings together religious, social, military and medical history, giving readers a unique insight into the early modern world.
Andrew Cunningham is a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science in the University of Cambridge. His most recent book is The Anatomical Renaissance (1997).
Ole Peter Grell is a Lecturer in Early Modern History at the Open University, Milton Keynes. Among his recent books are Calvinist Exiles in Tudor and Stuart England (Scolar Press, 1997) and Paracelsus: The Man and His Reputation (Brill Academic Publishers, 1998).
Together the authors have published Health Care and Poor Relief in Protestant Europe 1500-1700 (Routledge, 1997) and Health Care and Poor Relief in Counter-Reformation Europe (Routledge, 1999). Since 1998 they have edited the series History of Medicine in Context published by Ashgate.