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  1. Home
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  3. A Concise History of Switzerland
  • Cited by 36
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
June 2013
Print publication year:
2013
Online ISBN:
9781139013765
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139013765
Subjects:
Social and Population History, Area Studies, Regional and World History: General Interest, European History: General Interest, History, European Studies
Series:
Cambridge Concise Histories
Information

Book description

Despite its position at the heart of Europe and its quintessentially European nature, Switzerland's history is often overlooked within the English-speaking world. This comprehensive and engaging history of Switzerland traces the historical and cultural development of this fascinating but neglected European country from the end of the Dark Ages up to the present. The authors focus on the initial Confederacy of the Middle Ages; the religious divisions which threatened it after 1500 and its surprising survival amongst Europe's monarchies; the turmoil following the French Revolution and conquest, which continued until the Federal Constitution of 1848; the testing of the Swiss nation through the late nineteenth century and then two World Wars and the Depression of the 1930s; and the unparalleled economic and social growth and political success of the post-war era. The book concludes with a discussion of the contemporary challenges, often shared with neighbours, that shape the country today.

Reviews

‘These two specialists of pre-modern and modern Switzerland offer a cohesive narrative that not only highlights the particularities of Swiss history, but also its deep interrelations with European and global developments. Regardless of their excellent knowledge of even the most recent Swiss historiography, Head and Church take up a stance of their own in appraising achievements and shortcomings of a small but economically important country.’

Thomas Maissen - Chair of Early Modern History, University of Heidelberg and author of Geschichte der Schweiz

‘With this concisely written and convincingly argued book, [Church and Head] have masterfully pulled off the task of bringing Switzerland back within the frame of European history. The book draws on the latest research to argue that despite some of the country’s specificities and peculiarities, Switzerland has been located, since its early days, at the crossroads of European history, and has absorbed most of the continent’s intellectual, cultural and political drifts and dynamics. With a flair for the details that illuminate larger trends and developments, and for the events that disclose the fundamental continuities and changes, the book is a must - not only for all who are fascinated by the history of this country that lies at the very heart of Europe, but also for all those who are interested in the big issues that have been churning up Europe for centuries …’

Damir Skenderovic - University of Fribourg

'The authors' complementary specialties in early modern and contemporary European history make the book unusually well balanced between the remote and recent past … A clear, engaging synthesis appropriate for a wide variety of readers … Highly recommended.'

Source: Choice

'… deserves a wide national [Swiss] and international audience.'

Philippe Rogger Source: translated from H-Soz-u-Kult

‘Before visiting Switzerland, read A Concise History of Switzerland, by Clive H Church and Randolph Conrad Head.’

H. E. Jacques Pitteloud Source: Condé Nast Traveler

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Contents

Contents
References
Further Reading
Background and General
Butler, Michael, ‘The Politics of Myth: The Case of William Tell’, in Donahue, W. C. and Denham, S., eds, History and Literature (Tubingen: Stauffenberg, 2000), pp. 73–90.
Charnley, Joy, The Swiss and War (Berne: Lang, 1999).
Farhni, Dieter, An Outline History of Switzerland: From the Origins to the Present Day, 8th edn (Zurich: Pro Helvetia, 2003).
Fossedal, Gregory A., Direct Democracy in Switzerland (New Brunswick NJ and London: Transaction Publishers, 2002).
Kuntz, Joelle, Switzerland: How an Alpine Pass became a Country (Geneva: Historiator, 2008).
Luck, James Murray, History of Switzerland: The First 100,000 Years. From the Beginnings to the Days of the Present (Palo Alto, Cal.: SPOS, 1985).
Marchal, Guy P., ‘National Historiography and National Identity: Switzerland in Comparative Perspective,’ in Berger, S. and Lorenz, C, eds, The Contested Nation: Ethnicity, Class, Religion and Gender in National Histories (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008), pp. 311–38.
Meier, Heinz K., Switzerland (Santa Barbara, Calif.: Clio Press, 1990).
Nappey, Gregoire, Swiss History in a Nutshell (Basle: Bergli, 2010).
Schelbert, Leo, Historical Dictionary of Switzerland (Plymouth and Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007).
Steinberg, Jonathan, Why Switzerland? 2nd edn (Cambridge University Press, 1996).
Pre-Modern Switzerland
Baker, Wayne, ‘Church, State, and Dissent: The Crisis of the Swiss Reformation, 1531–1536’, Church History 57/2 (1988), 135–152.
Burnett, Amy N., Teaching the Reformation: Ministers and Their Message in Basle, 1529–1629 (Oxford University Press, 2006).
Campi, Emidio and Gordon, Bruce, eds, Architect of Reformation: An Introduction to Heinrich Bullinger, 1504–1575 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004).
Davis, James C., ‘Coping with the Underclasses: Venice, Lille, and Zurich in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, Journal of Urban History 19/4 (1993), pp. 116–122.
Ehrstine, Glenn, Theater, Culture, and Community in Reformation Berne, 1523–1555 (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
Gordon, Bruce, The Swiss Reformation (Manchester University Press, 2002).
Groebner, Valentin, Liquid Assets, Dangerous Gifts: Presents and Politics at the End of the Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002).
Hacke, Daniela, ‘Church, Space and Conflict: Religious Co-Existence and Political Communication in Seventeenth-Century Switzerland’, German History 25/3 (2007), pp. 285–312.
Harder, Lelan, The Sources of Swiss Anabaptism: The Grebel Letters and Related Documents (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2001).
Head, Randolph C., ‘Fragmented Dominion, Fragmented Churches: The Institutionalization of the Landfrieden in the Thurgau, 1531–1630’, Archive for Reformation History 96 (2005), pp. 117–44.
Head, Randolph C., ‘Shared Lordship, Authority and Administration: The Exercise of Dominion in the Gemeine Herrschaften of the Swiss Confederation, 1417–1600’, Central European History 30/4 (2001), pp. 489–512.
Head, Randolph C., ‘William Tell and his Comrades: Association and Fraternity in the Propaganda of Fifteenth- And Sixteenth-Century Switzerland’, Journal of Modern History 67/3 (1995), pp. 527–557.
Kingdon, Robert, Adultery and Divorce in Calvin’s Geneva (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995).
Kümin, Beat, ‘Public Houses and Civic Tensions in Early Modern Berne’, Urban History 34/1 (2007), pp. 89–101.
Lister, Frederick K., The Early Security Confederations: From the Ancient Greeks to the United Colonies of New England (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999).
Locher, Gottfried, Zwingli’s Thought: New Perspectives (Leiden: Brill, 1981).
Mathieu, Jon, History of the Alps, trans. Vester, Matthew (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2009).
McCormick, John, One Million Mercenaries (London: Leo Cooper, 1993).
Miller, David and Embleton, Gerry, The Swiss at War 1300–1500 (Oxford: Osprey/Men at Arms, 1979).
Sablonier, Roger, ‘The Swiss Confederation 1415–1500’, in Allmand, Christopher, ed., New Cambridge Modern History, vol. 7 (Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 645–70.
Wandel, Lee Palmer, Voracious Idols and Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg and Basle (Cambridge University Press, 1994).
Watt, Jeffrey R., Choosing Death: Suicide and Calvinism in Early Modern Geneva (Kirksville, Mo.: Truman State University Press, 2001).
The Eighteenth Century
Biucchi, Basilio, ‘Switzerland, 1700–1914’, in Cipolla, Carlo, ed., Fontana Economic History of Europe: Industrialization , vol. 2 (London: Fontana, 1979), pp. 627–55.
Braun, Rudolf, Industrialisation and Everyday Life, trans. Hanbury-Tenison, Sarah (Cambridge University Press, 1990).
Holenstein, Andre et al., eds, The Republican Alternative: The Netherlands and Switzerland Compared (Amsterdam University Press, 2008).
Kirk, Linda, ‘Genevan Republicanism’, in Wootton, David, ed., Republicanism, Liberty, and Commercial Society, 1649–1776 (Stanford University Press, 1994), pp. 270–309.
Körner, Martin, ‘The Swiss Confederation,’ in Bonney, Richard, ed., The Rise of the Fiscal State in Europe 1200–1815 (Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 327–57.
Larminie, Vivienne, ‘Life in Ancien Regime Vaud’, History Today 48/4 (April 1998), pp. 44–50.
Lerner, Mark, A Laboratory of Liberty: The Transformation of Political Culture in Republican Switzerland, 1750–1848 (Leiden: Brill, 2011).
Mason, Stanley, Albrecht Von Haller:‘The Alps.’ An English Translation (Dubendorf: Amstutz/De Clivo Press, 1987).
Zimmer, Oliver, Contested Nation: History, Memory and Nationalism in Switzerland, 1761–1891 (Oxford University Press, 2003).
Zurbuchen, Simon, ‘Switzerland in the Eighteenth Century: Myth and Reality’, Eighteenth-Century Studies 37/4 (2004), pp. 692–694.
The Revolutionary Era
Birmingham, David, Switzerland: A Village History (London and New York: Palgrave/St Martin’s Press, 2000).
Bullen, Roger, ‘Guizot and the “Sonderbund” Crisis, 1846–48’, English Historical Review 86/340 (1971), pp. 497–526.
Church, Clive H., Europe in 1830: Revolution and Political Change (London: Allen & Unwin, 1982).
Frei, Daniel, ‘The Politics of the Artificial Past etc.’ in Eades, James C., ed., Romantic Nationalism in Europe (Canberra: Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, 1983), pp. 116–133.
Lerner, Mark, ‘The Helvetic Republic: An Ambivalent Reception of French Revolutionary Liberty’, French History 18/1 (2004), pp. 50–75.
Lister, Frederick K., The Later Security Confederations (Westport, CN: Greenwood, 2001), pp. 99–120.
Orr, Clarissa C., ‘The Swiss Romantic Movement’, in Porter, Roy and Teich, Michael, eds, Romantic Nationalism in Historic Context (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 134–69.
Müller, Thomas C., ‘Switzerland 1847/49’, in Dowe, Dieter, ed., Europe in 1848: Revolution and Reform (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2001), pp. 210–41.
Remak, Joachim, A Very Civil War: The Swiss Sonderbund War of 1847 (Boulder: Westview, 1993).
Speich, Daniel, ‘Switzerland’, in Herb, Guntram H. and Kaplan, David H., eds, Nations and Nationalism: A Global Historical Overview (Santa Barbara, Cal: ABC CLIO, 2008), pp. 244–55.
Tilly, Charles, ‘Switzerland as a Special Case’, in Tilly, C., Contention and Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 168–205.
Later Nineteenth Century
Altermatt, Urs, ‘A Century of Conservatism’, Journal of Contemporary History 14/4 (1979), pp. 581–610.
Argast, Regula, ‘An Unholy Alliance: Swiss Citizenship between Local Legal Tradition, Federal Laissez-Faire, and Ethno-national Rejection of Foreigners 1848–1933’, European Review of History 16/4 (2009), pp. 503–21.
Craig, Gordon A., The Triumph of Liberalism: Zurich in the golden age, 1830–1869 (NewYork: Scribner’s, 1990).
Gossman, Lionel, Basle in the Age of Burckhardt: A Study in Unseasonable Ideas (University of Chicago Press, 2000).
Moorehead, Caroline, Dunant’s Dream (London: Harper Collins, 1998).
Studer, Roman, ‘When did the Swiss get so rich? Comparing Living Standards in Switzerland and Europe, 1800–1913’, Journal of European Economic History 37/2 (2008), pp. 405–52.
Zimmer, Oliver, ‘Competing Memories of the Nation: Liberal Historians and the Reconstruction of the Swiss Past 1870–1900’, Past & Present 168 (2000), pp. 194–226.
The Early Twentieth Century
Guex, S., ‘The Origins of the Swiss Banking Secrecy Law and its Repercussions for Swiss Federal Policy’, Business History Review 74/2 (2000), pp. 237–66.
Leimgruber, Mathieu, Solidarity without the State? Business and the Shaping of the Swiss Welfare State, 1890–2000 (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
Segesser, Daniel M., ‘“Common Doctrine Rather than Secret Staff Conversations”: Military Co-operation between France and Switzerland in the 1920s and 1930s’, War in History 10/1 (2003), pp. 60–91.
Vogler, Robert U., ‘The Genesis of Swiss Banking Secrecy: Political and Economic Environment’, Financial History Review 8/1 (2001), pp. 73–84.
Volmert, Andrew, ‘The Reinterpretation of Political Tradition: The Catholic Roots of Jurassian Nationalism’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 14/3 (2008), pp. 395–427.
The Second World War
Bergier, Jean-François, ‘Enterprises in Switzerland during the Second World War’, in James, Harold and Tanner, Jakob, eds, Enterprise in the Period of Fascism in Europe (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 105–14.
Bergier, Jean-François et al., Switzerland, National Socialism and the Second World War: Final Report (Zurich: Pendo, 2002).
Bower, T., Nazi Gold: The Full Story of the Fifty-Year Swiss–Nazi Conspiracy to Steal Billions from Europe’s Jews and Holocaust Survivors (London and New York: HarperCollins, 1997).
Halbrook, S. P., Target Switzerland: Swiss Armed Neutrality in World War II (New York: Sarpedon/Da Capo Press Inc., 2003).
Kreis, Georg, Switzerland and the Second World War: Responding to the Challenges of the Times (Zurich: Pro Helvetia, 1999).
Kreis, Georg and Cesarani, David, eds, Switzerland and the Second World War (London: Frank Cass, 2000).
LeBor, Adam, Hitler’s Secret Bankers: How Swiss Banks Profited from Nazi Genocide (London: Birch Lane Press, 1997).
Levin, Ira C., The Last Deposit: The Swiss Banks and Holocaust Victims’ Accounts (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1999).
Ludi, Regula, ‘Why Switzerland?’ Remarks on a Neutral’s Role in the Nazi Program of Robbery and Allied Postwar Restitution Policy (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007).
Rickman, Gregg J., Swiss Banks and Jewish Souls (Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Books 1999.
Urner, Klaus, Let’s Swallow Switzerland (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2002).
Vincent, Isabel, Hitler’s Silent Partners: Swiss Banks, Nazi Gold, and the Pursuit of Justice (New York: W. Morrow, 1997).
Wylie, Neville, Britain, Switzerland and World War II (Oxford University Press, 2003).
Post-1945
Butler, M. et al., eds, The Making of Modern Switzerland, 1848–1998 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000).
Church, Clive H., ‘The Political and Economic Development of Switzerland, 1945–1991’, in Butler, M. and Pender, M., eds, Rejection and Emancipation (New York and Oxford: Berg, 1991), pp. 7–21.
Erdman, Paul, The Crash of ’79 (New York: Sphere Books, 1978).
Fehrenbach, Thomas, The Gnomes of Zurich (London: Frewin, 1966).
Ganser, Daniele, NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism (London: Cass, 2005).
Hilovitz, Janet E., ed., Switzerland in Perspective (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1990).
Hughes, Christopher J., ‘Cantonalism: Federation and Confederacy in the Golden Epoch of Switzerland’, in Burgess, Michael and Gagnon, Alain G., eds, Comparative Federalism and Federation (London: Harvester-Wheatsheaf, 1993), pp. 154–67.
Hughes, Christopher J., ‘Switzerland (1875): Constitutionalism and Democracy’, in Bogdanor, Vernon, ed., Constitutions in Democratic Politics (Aldershot: Gower/PSI, 1988), pp. 227–40.
Katzenstein, Peter J., Corporatism and Change (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983).
Gabriel, Jürg M. and Fischer, Thomas, eds, Swiss Foreign Policy, 1945–2002 (Basingstoke: Palgave, 2003).
Lembruch, Gerhard, ‘Consociational Democracy and Corporatism in Switzerland’, Publius 23/2 (1993), pp. 43–60.
Milivojevic, Marko and Maurer, Pierre, eds, Swiss Neutrality and Security (Oxford: Berg, 1990).
Skenderovic, Damir, The Radical Right in Switzerland (London: Berg, 2009).
Contemporary Switzerland
Bewes, Diccon, Swiss Watching (London: Nicholas Brealey, 2010).
Braillard, Pierre, Switzerland and the Crisis of Dormant Assets and Nazi Gold (London: Kegan Paul International, 2000).
Church, Clive H., ‘Switzerland: An Introduction’, in Kalin, Christian, ed., Switzerland Business & Investment Handbook, 3rd edn (Zurich: Orell Füssli, 2011), pp. 3–18.
Church, Clive H., ed., Switzerland and the European Union (London: Routledge, 2007).
Dardanelli, Paolo, ‘Federal Democracy in Switzerland’, in Burgess, Michael and Gagnon, Alain, eds, Federal Democracies (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 142–59.
Goetschel, Laurent et al., Swiss Foreign Policy: Foundations and Possibilities (London: Routledge, 2006).
Haller, Walter, The Swiss Constitution in a Comparative Context (Zurich: Dike, 2009).
Handschin, Lukas, Swiss Company Law (Zurich: Dike, 2008).
Kloti, Ulrich et al., eds, Handbook of Swiss Politics, 2nd edn (Zurich: NZZ Libro, 2007).
Kriesi, Hanspeter and Trechsel, Alex, The Politics of Switzerland: Continuity and Change in a Consensus Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
Ladner, Andreas and Brändle, Michael, ‘Switzerland: The Green Party, Alternative and Liberal Greens’, in Frankland, E. Gene, ed., Green Parties in Transition (Abingdon: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 109–28.
Linder, Wolf, Swiss Democracy, 3rd edn (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2010).
Lutz, Georg, ‘The 2011 Swiss Federal Elections etc’, West European Politics 35 (2012) 682–93.
New, Mitya, Switzerland Unwrapped: Exposing the Myths (London: I. B. Tauris, 1997).
Oesch, Daniel, Redrawing the Class Map: Stratification and Institutions in Britain, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2006).
Schwok, René, Switzerland–European Union: An Impossible Membership? (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2009).
Turk, Eleanor L., Issues in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (Westport, CN: Greenwood 2003).
Vatter, Adrian and Church, Clive H., ‘Opposition in Consensual Switzerland: A Short but Significant Experiment’, Government and Opposition 44/4 (2009), pp. 412–37.

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