Firepower : : how Weapons Shaped Warfare

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Call Number: 355.82 Lo
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	355.82 Lo	4-week checkout	On Shelf

BOOK I THE GUNPOWDER REVOLUTION, 1300 -- 1800 -- ch. 1 The Bombard and the Fortress -- ch. 2 The Ship-Killing Ship -- ch. 3 Pike and Shot -- ch. 4 Musket, Bayonet, and Field Gun -- ch. 5 The Military Revolution -- BOOK II THE AGE OF REVOLUTIONS, 1800 -- 1870 -- ch. 6 War and Technology in the Age of Revolutions -- ch. 7 The Rifle and the Bullet -- ch. 8 Shot and Shell -- ch. 9 Ironclad -- BOOK III THE REVOLUTION IN FIREPOWER, 1870 -- 1918 -- ch. 10 The Great Arms Race and the Great War -- ch. 11 The Rifle and the Bullet Revisited -- ch. 12 Full Auto -- ch. 13 High Explosive -- ch. 14 Dreadnought and U-Boat -- ch. 15 The Emerging Technologies: Air and Armor -- BOOK IV THE TWILIGHT OF FIREPOWER, 1918 -- 1845 -- ch. 16 The Lessons of the Great War -- ch. 17 Portable Firepower -- ch. 18 The Big Guns -- ch. 19 Airpower -- ch. 20 The Twilight of the Battleship.
"The history of warfare cannot be fully understood without considering the technology of killing. In Firepower, acclaimed historian Paul Lockhart tells the story of military technology from the Renaissance to the dawn of the atomic era -- five-hundred-year-long "age of firepower" during which the evolution of weaponry transformed the conduct of warfare in the West. Weapons technology had always influenced warfare. But the introduction of gunpowder weapons at the close of the Middle Ages made military technology the largest single factor shaping warfare's tactics, strategy, and logistics. Over the five centuries leading up to World War II, the art of war revolved around the ever-more-effective delivery of firepower, and the driving force of weapons development was the compulsion to make that possible. But for centuries, even as it became more effective, military weaponry remained simple and affordable enough that nearly any state could afford to equip a respectable army; weapons could be used and used again until they physically wore out. That all changed, very suddenly, around 1870. Widespread industrialization and rapid advances in metallurgy and chemistry meant that by the start of World War I, only a handful of great powers could afford to manufacture their own weapons. Revolutions in military technology, in short, triggered a revolution in the structure of power in the West, significantly reducing the number of nations that could act assertively in international politics -- and reducing the others to a condition of permanent subordination. Going beyond the battlefield to consider the profound political and social contexts of armed conflict, Firepower ultimately reveals how the evolution of weapons technology, and the uses to which it has been put, have together transformed human history"-- Provided by publisher.

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Highly Recommended submitted by GJBarnett2 on July 17, 2022, 9:17pm A first-rate survey of the Age Of Gunpowder from the 12th to the 20th Century. If you know nothing, or think you know it all, you'll find much of value.