This book was an inexpensive speculative purchase via the internet and did not turn out as expected. Instead of being a book about art, this is an overview of one of the most critical periods in European history (1610-1660).
In addition to the birth of Opera, the lives of Shakespeare and Milton, this short, fifty year, period saw the thirty year war and the English Civil War. The outcome of all this turmoil was that the stranglehold of the Church upon the running of the state was broken and the modern state was born.
For a person such as myself, this book held sufficient detail but, if one did wish to study the subject in more depth, the book quotes its reference sources and has a comprehensive list of further reading.
This is what an informative history book should be. The only negative is that, this book was published in 1962. At that time, colour photographs and pictures integrated into the text, were both prohibitively expensive. This is a particular draw back in the section upon art. ( )