Rebels and Rulers, 1500–1660 is a comparative historical study of revolution in the greatest royal states of Western Europe during the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries. Revolution as a general problem and the causes and character of revolution in early modern Europe have been among the most widely discussed and debated topics in history and the social sciences since the 1940s. Although the subject of social and political unrest and revolution in the early modern period has received much attention, and despite the existence of a very large literature devoted to particular revolutions of the time, no one has attempted the broad comparative synthesis that is given by Professor Zarogin in this study. Volume II deals first with provincial rebellions in the French, English, and Spanish monarchies. The remaining chapters are devoted to a synoptic account of the French civil war or wars of religion, the Netherlands rebellion, the English revolution, and the Fronde. Rebels and Rulers is a comprehensive discussion of early modern revolution that contains an examination of the most significant revolutions of Western Europe in the period before 1789. It offers fresh understanding of both well-known and neglected revolutionary events and is the first work to consider the many diverse revolutions of this seminal epoch in comparative historical perspective.

"...a landmark in the long and continuing debates about revolution in general and the nature of early modern European revolution in particular...it will undoubtedly have some significance for every serious student of early modern European society...the qualities of clarity and cogency which [Zagorin] brings to bear on fundamental but thorny issues will most certainly prove of value [to] students and professional scholars alike." Jonathan Israel, Comparative Studies in Society and History

"The attempt is ambitious; it compels admiration for the range of Zagorin's knowledge of the period and its bibliography and for his skill as a synthesizer. It is certainly useful to see these revolutions, from the revolt of the Comuneros to the Fronde, in comparative context...a valuable empirical study of some important episodes of European history, broadly related to each other in that almost all involved defensive revolts by 'traditional' societies against the encroachments of the modern centralizing state." David Underdown, Renaissance Quarterly

"Rebels and Rulers provides thoughtful summaries of many early conflicts, informed by a good sense of the political and social structures behind them, a hostility to forcing them into general schemes, and an aversion to interpreting them as expressions of class division." Charles Tilly, American Historical Review