Firepower: How Weapons Shaped Warfare

by Paul Lockhart

Overview

The “fascinating” (Wall Street Journal) story of 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541672963
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	10/19/2021
Pages:	640
Sales rank:	68,758
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.40(h) x 2.10(d)

About the Author

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. 
  

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Introduction The Age of the Gun 1

Book I The Gunpowder Revolution, 1300-1800

Chapter 1 The Bombard and the Fortress 17

Chapter 2 The Ship-Killing Ship 40

Charter 3 Pike and Shot 66

Chapter 4 Musket, Bayonet, and Field Gun 94

Chapter 5 The Military Revolution 122

Book II The Age of Revolutions, 1800-1870

Chapter 6 War and Technology in the Age of Revolutions 139

Chapter 7 The Rifle and the Bullet 154

Chapter 8 Shot and Shell 192

Chapter 9 Ironclad 211

Book III The Revolution in Firepower, 1870-1918

Chapter 10 The Great Arms Race and the Great War 235

Chapter 11 The Rifle and the Bullet Revisited 251

Chapter 12 Full Auto 283

Chapter 13 High Explosive 311

Chapter 14 Dreadnought and U-Boat 345

Chapter 15 The Emerging Technologies: Air and Armor 380

Book IV The Twilight of Firepower, 1918-1945

Chapter 16 The Lessons of the Great War 425

Chapter 17 Portable Firepower 438

Chapter 18 The Big Guns 470

Chapter 19 Airpower 501

Chapter 20 The Twilight of the Battleship 534

Epilogue 555

Notes 563

Index 579

Editorial Reviews

Fascinating stories…Mr. Lockhart writes in an easy, conversational manner.”—Wall Street Journal

“A fascinating new history of weapons technology.”—The Daily Beast

“An accessible account of how weapons became part of systems rather than warriors’ tools.”—Army Magazine

“This entertaining, valuable book is a must read for educated lay readers, as well as for serious students of military technology.”—Technology and Culture

"Detailed and broad...Readers of military history (particularly about military technology, warfare, and the effects of these on society as a whole) will find this book interesting."—Library Journal

“Do new weapons create novel tactics and strategy or simply enhance unchanging doctrines? Paul Lockhart’s exhaustive study of the origins, role, and evolution of gunpowder weapons answers that neither war nor the world itself has ever been the same after the introduction of guns. His tour of the spread of gunpowder weaponry from the fifteenth century to the present is itself a tour de force of facts, analysis, and engaging prose. A riveting history of how five hundred years of gunpowder have changed the way hundreds of millions have lived—and died.”—Victor Davis Hanson, author of The Second World Wars

“Firepower makes the essential connection between technology and power, from the pike and the arquebus to the dreadnought, tanks, modern artillery, and airpower. The book's great strength is the author's ability to explain even the most complex technologies in simple, graspable terms—before tying them to the evolution of warfare and the global struggle for mastery.”—Geoffrey Wawro, author of Sons of Freedom, A Mad Catastrophe, and The Franco-Prussian War

"Firepower is a fascinating, rip-roaring ride through the development of modern weapons technology and its impact upon war. Lockhart carefully dispels decades of myths and shows why we need to understand how firearms and war machines, from muskets and machine-guns to battleships and bombs, actually worked."—Nick Lloyd, King's College London

From the Publisher

08/27/2021

In this wide-ranging review of the history and impact of gunpowder weaponry on modern society from the late Renaissance to the Atomic Age, Lockhart (military and European history, Wright State Univ.; The Drillmaster of Valley Forge) argues that gunpowder weaponry technology had wide ranging effects on warfare and upon the nations and societies that prepared for and engaged in warfare. Lockhart traces the history of the applications of gunpowder in land, sea, and air warfare over this 500-year period, arguing that this military technology not only changed warfare dramatically but had very significant effects on the societies of its practitioners. His exploration of the history of firearms and warfare is detailed and broad, ranging from infantry rifles, artillery, tanks, airplanes, and warships. Firearms, in his view, transformed warfare dramatically, and those changes significantly contributed to other great transformations such as improvement of transportation systems, more advanced technology, industrialization of national economies, the organization of government, creation of professional standing armies and navies, government financing, broader participation of citizenry in national militaries, and a changed international world order. VERDICT Readers of military history (particularly about military technology, warfare, and the effects of these on society as a whole) will find this book interesting. It includes extensive histories of many of the most important military technologies of the 16th through 20th centuries.—Mark Jones, Mercantile Lib., Cincinnati

Library Journal