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A groundbreaking history of how the Black Death unleashed revolutionary change across the medieval world and ushered in the modern age In 1346, a catastrophic plague beset Europe and its neighbours. The Black Death was a human tragedy that abruptly halved entire populations and caused untold suffering, but it also brought about a cultural and economic renewal on a scale never before witnessed. The World the Plague Made is a panoramic history of how the bubonic plague revolutionized labour, trade, and technology and set the stage for Europe’s global expansion. James Belich takes readers across centuries and continents to shed new light on one of history’s greatest paradoxes. Why did Europ...
This Handbook provides the first comprehensive and global analysis of medieval military strategy, covering the period from the sixth to the seventeenth century. Challenging the widely held notion in modern strategic studies that medieval strategy was non-existent, the Handbook brings together leading scholars to explore a range of literatures, campaigns, laws, and contexts that highlight medieval warfare’s multifaceted contours. The scope of the work is ambitious, with over 30 chapters dedicated to analyzing strategy across six continents. From Charlemagne to Henry V and Scandinavia to Florence; southbound to Morocco then across the Sahara to Kongo; past the Adriatic to Byzantium and Georg...
This handbook examines key aspects of the development of the global history of warfare and the changing patterns of warfare over time. Although scholarship has long eschewed a chronological narrative of the evolution of warfare that privileges the Western experience, global histories of warfare have had difficulty avoiding an overemphasis on the West. The present volume is a collection of themes rather than a history per se; it provides important perspectives on the emergence of warfare as a global historical experience from the ancient past to the present day. Drawing together numerous experts, it tells a broader, more inclusive story of the global, human experience with wars and warfare. T...
This book focuses on the relation between technology, warfare and state in South Asia in the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. It explores how gunpowder and artillery played a pivotal role in the military ascendancy of the East India Company in India. The monograph argues that the contemporary Indian military landscape was extremely dynamic, with contemporary indigenous polities (Mysore, the Maratha Confederacy and the Khalsa Kingdom) attempting to transform their military systems by modelling their armies on European lines. It shows how the Company established an edge through an efficient bureaucracy and a standardised manufacturing system, while the Indian powers primarily focused on continuous innovation and failed to introduce standardisation of production. Drawing on archival records from India and the UK, this volume makes a significant intervention in our understanding of the rise of the British Empire in South Asia. It will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of history, especially military history, military and strategic studies and South Asian studies.
In Masters of Warfare, Eric G. L. Pinzelli presents a selection of fifty commanders whose military achievements, skill or historical impact he believes to be underrated by modern opinion. He specifically does not include the household names (the "Gods of War" as he calls them) such as Alexander, Julius Caesar, Wellington, Napoléon, Rommel or Patton that have been covered in countless biographies. Those chosen come from every period of recorded military history from the sixth century BC to the Vietnam War. The selection rectifies the European/US bias of many such surveys with Asian entries such as Bai Qi (Chinese), Attila (Hunnic), Subotai (Mongol), Ieyasu Tokugawa (Japanese) and Võ Nguyên Giáp (Vietnamese). Naval commanders are also represented by the likes of Khayr al-Din Barbarossa, Francis Drake and Michiel de Ruyter. These 50 "Masters of War" are presented in a chronological order easy to follow, with a concise overview of their life and career. Altogether they present a fascinating survey of the developments and continuities in the art of command, but most importantly their contribution to the evolution of weaponry, tactic and strategy through the ages.
This book provides a multidisciplinary commentary on a wide range of religious traditions and their relationship to acts of violence. Hate and violence occur at every level of human interaction, as do peace and compassion. Scholars of religion have a particular obligation to make sense out of this situation, tracing its history and variables, and drawing lessons for the future. From the formative periods of the religious traditions to their application in the contemporary world, the essays in this volume interrogate the views on violence found within the traditions and provide examples of religious practices that exacerbate or ameliorate situations of conflict.
A new framework contextualizes crucial international security issues at sea in the Indo-Pacific Competition at sea is once again a central issue of international security. Nowhere is the urgency to address state-on-state competition at sea more strongly felt than in the Indo-Pacific region, where freedom of navigation is challenged by regional states’ continuous investments in naval power, and the renewed political will to use it to undermine its principles. The New Age of Naval Power in the Indo-Pacific provides an original framework in which five “factors of influence” explain how and why naval power matters in this pivotal part of the world. An international group of contributors ma...
The Military Revolution and Revolutions in Military Affairs updates two central debates in military history--the one surrounding the concept of military revolution, and the one on military affairs--whilst advancing original research in both fields. Only a handful of publications consider the military revolution and the RMA in tandem. This book breaks new ground conceptually and appeals to an exceptionally large and diverse readership. Comparative revisionist studies of the military revolution and RMA better enable us to comprehend the historical continuum and reveal the new RMA for what it is. And for what it is shortly to become. This book presents original contributions within the "epicent...