Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe: Gunpowder,Technology,and Tactics

Amazon.com
Francis Bacon, writing in 1620, remarked that the magnetic compass, the printing press, and gunpowder changed the appearance and state of the whole world. Bert S. Hall focuses closely on the last innovation to examine the effects of changes in military technology on European history in the late Middle Ages and early modern era. Strategists, he writes, first used guns as a means of inducing panic in an enemy. When rival armies gained access to this technology, the psychological use of firearms gave way to their employment as weapons of mass destruction. With increased military power came a transformation in the power of states, allowing greater centralization and force. Military history buffs will find much of interest in these pages.


—Frederic J. Baumgartner, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
"The best book yet on military history in the era from the Hundred Years' War to the Thirty Years' War."


Review
"Combines a good grasp of military history with an understanding of the history of technology... Hall manages to integrate his technical discussion into a refreshing reinterpretation of general military history in the period, and his book is an engrossing read."-- American Historical Review


Review
"Hall's unmatched command of the sources and the science of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century military technology makes this book a must-read for any scholar interested in the subject."--Clifford J. Rogers, United States Military Academy


Book Description
Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe explores the history of gunpowder in Europe from the thirteenth century, when it was first imported from China, to the sixteenth century, as firearms became central to the conduct of war. Bridging the fields of military history and the history of technology -- and challenging past assumptions about Europe's "gunpowder revolution" -- Hall discovers a complex and fascinating story. Military inventors faced a host of challenges, he finds, from Europe's lack of naturally occurring saltpeter -- one of gunpowder's major components -- to the limitations of smooth-bore firearms. Manufacturing cheap, reliable gunpowder proved a difficult feat, as did making firearms that had reasonably predictable performance characteristics. Hall details the efforts of armorers across Europe as they experimented with a variety of gunpowder recipes and gunsmithing techniques, and he examines the integration of new weapons into the existing structure of European warfare.


Card catalog description
We often take for granted the importance of gunpowder in the development of European warfare without clearly understanding its role as a catalyst for historical change. Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe explores the history of gunpowder in Europe from the thirteenth century, when it was first imported from China, to the sixteenth century, as firearms became central to the conduct of war. In reassessing the integration of gunpowder weapons into European warfare, Hall discovers, that the "gunpowder revolution" was in fact an evolutionary process consisting of both dramatic innovations and minor improvements, a process that not only transformed the European way of war but also influenced European statecraft as society moved from the medieval to the modern.


From the Publisher
"Hall has long been recognized as a leading authority on early modern military technology. Scholars of the period and historians in general will find this the best treatment to date of the impact of gunpowder on Western Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries."—History: Reviews of New Books Combines a good grasp of military history with an understanding of the history of technology . . . Hall manages to integrate his technical discussion into a refreshing reinterpretation of general military history in the period, and his book is an engrossing read."—American Historical Review "Hall's unmatched command of the sources and the science of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century military technology makes this book a must-read for any scholar interested in the subject."—Clifford J. Rogers, United States Military Academy


About the Author
Bert S. Hall is associate professor at the University of Toronto's Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology and co-editor of Health, Disease and Healing in Medieval Culture.


Buy from Amazon     Compare Prices

Hall's unmatched command of the sources and the science of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century military technology makes this book a must-read for any scholar interested in the subject.


Buy from Barnes & Noble     Compare Prices