Failure fascinates historians, especially when it follows fast on the heels of victory. In ten provocative essays, Geoffrey Parker chronicles notable moments in fifteenth-, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe when defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory. He paints a broad picture of empire, war, and religion in the early modern world.Parker groups his material into three sections. In the first, he examines the rise and fall of the first global empire, the Spanish Empire. In the second, he shows how the spread of the Western military innovation triggered resistance stronger than it could overcome. Finally, he tells of the failure of the Reformation to grow beyond its original, urban milieu.Success Is Never Final offers a rich and original view of the fluctuations of power in early modern Europe, and bold new thinking from one of our master historians.