Firearms: A Global History to 1700

Although firearms were invented in China and avidly taken up by the Ottoman Empire and other states, by 1700, European guns were the best in the world. This salient aspect of Western military superiority--perhaps the most important development in modern history--receives an insightful new analysis in this cogent study. Chase, a lawyer with a Ph.D. in East Asian languages and civilizations, considers, and rejects, arguments for Europe's exceptional technological, cultural or political advantages, focusing instead on specific military constraints faced by Old World civilizations in the early modern era. Non-European states, he argues, were preoccupied with raising cavalry forces to defend against fast-moving mounted steppe nomads, a context in which early firearms--heavy, slow-firing, inaccurate and unmanageable on horseback--were all but useless. In Western Europe, by contrast, battles revolved around walled fortresses (which were stable enough platforms to make use of primitive cannon and handguns), and were fought by infantrymen (who were big and slow enough targets to be hit by them). The greater utility of guns in Europe, the author contends, favored their widespread adoption and rapid improvement, which in turn stimulated revolutionary innovations in military organization and drill in European armies. Chase weaves a wealth of information on firearms technology into a lucid description of the interplay of geographical, logistic and economic factors in the warfare of the period, paying special attention to oft-neglected developments in Asia. His immersion in the details enlivens rather than bogs down his arguments, and the result is a well-written and compelling reinterpretation of a watershed in military history. B&w illustrations, maps.