Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe: Gunpowder, Technology, and Tactics (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology)

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.… (more)