I just picked this one up and will be presently reading it during the slow periods during off-shifts at work...

The Thirty Years War: Europe's Tragedy by Peter H Wilson (Belknap-Harvard)

   This is basically a more in-depth review of that conflict in Northern Europe which so shaped the German consciousness, often simplified in the Anglosphere as a conflict between Catholics and Protestants.  It's really much more involved than that, according to Wilson, covering disputes between the rival fiefdoms which comprised what was then known as the Holy Roman Empire, and only having some roots in the events rising out of Martin Luther's call for Catholic Reformation.

   Personalities involved in the conflict include the aristocrat Wallenstein, and the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus.  The war itself left an indelible mark on the Germans, having devastated their country for a generation, and left up to 30 percent of them dead in its wake.  A much-overlooked facet of European history.