Firepower
How Weapons Shaped Warfare
Published on 19. October 2021
640 pages
978-1-5416-7295-6 (ISBN)
Description
How military technology has transformed the world
The history of warfare cannot be fully understood without considering the technology of killing. In Firepower, acclaimed historian Paul Lockhart tells the story of the evolution of weaponry and how it transformed not only the conduct of warfare but also the very structure of power in the West, from the Renaissance to the dawn of the atomic era.
Across this period, improvements in firepower shaped the evolving art of war. For centuries, weaponry had remained simple enough that any state could equip a respectable army. That all changed around 1870, when the cost of investing in increasingly complicated technology soon meant that only a handful of great powers could afford to manufacture advanced weaponry, while other countries fell behind. Going beyond the battlefield, Firepower ultimately reveals how changes in weapons technology reshaped human history.
The history of warfare cannot be fully understood without considering the technology of killing. In Firepower, acclaimed historian Paul Lockhart tells the story of the evolution of weaponry and how it transformed not only the conduct of warfare but also the very structure of power in the West, from the Renaissance to the dawn of the atomic era.
Across this period, improvements in firepower shaped the evolving art of war. For centuries, weaponry had remained simple enough that any state could equip a respectable army. That all changed around 1870, when the cost of investing in increasingly complicated technology soon meant that only a handful of great powers could afford to manufacture advanced weaponry, while other countries fell behind. Going beyond the battlefield, Firepower ultimately reveals how changes in weapons technology reshaped human history.
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11/2021
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Paul Lockhart is professor of history at Wright State University, where he has taught military and European history for thirty-one years. The author of six books on the role of war in history, including The Drillmaster of Valley Forge and The Whites of Their Eyes, Lockhart lives in Dayton, Ohio.
Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Table of Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- Introduction The Age of the Gun
- BOOK I. THE GUNPOWDER REVOLUTION, 1300-1800
- CHAPTER 1 The Bombard and the Fortress
- CHAPTER 2 The Ship-Killing Ship
- CHAPTER 3 Pike and Shot
- CHAPTER 4 Musket, Bayonet, and Field Gun
- CHAPTER 5 The Military Revolution
- BOOK II. THE AGE OF REVOLUTIONS, 1800-1870
- CHAPTER 6 War and Technology in the Age of Revolutions
- CHAPTER 7 The Rifle and the Bullet
- CHAPTER 8 Shot and Shell
- CHAPTER 9 Ironclad
- BOOK III. THE REVOLUTION IN FIREPOWER, 1870-1918
- CHAPTER 10 The Great Arms Race and the Great War
- CHAPTER 11 The Rifle and the Bullet Revisited
- CHAPTER 12 Full Auto
- CHAPTER 13 High Explosive
- CHAPTER 14 Dreadnought and U-Boat
- CHAPTER 15 The Emerging Technologies: Air and Armor
- BOOK IV. THE TWILIGHT OF FIREPOWER, 1918-1945
- CHAPTER 16 The Lessons of the Great War
- CHAPTER 17 Portable Firepower
- CHAPTER 18 The Big Guns
- CHAPTER 19 Airpower
- CHAPTER 20 The Twilight of the Battleship
- Epilogue
- Discover More
- Notes
- About the Author
