This important volume presents the first comprehensive history of early modern La Rochelle, a port town whose fractious residents became embroiled in the French Reformations.
Opening chapters situate the Rochelais within the geopolitics of an oceanic frontier, where urbanites created a strong, heavily armed civic government, in part because they perceived themselves as isolated civilizing agents surrounded by the savage inhabitants of a lawless environment.
Analysis of the city's Reformation proceeds within this context of place and politics, showing how various ranks of the citizenry...