As an introduction to her detailed study Professor Lublinskaya presents a summary and critique of the whole 'general crisis' interpretation of seventeenth-century European history which is regularly a subject for heated debate among Western historians. However, it is as a specialist in the history of seventeenth-century France that Professor Lublinskaya approaches the problem of the general crisis. The major part of her book is a detailed analysis of the political, social and economic history of the France of Louis XIII - a crucial period for the development of the French monarchy.