The Consequences of the Military Revolution in Muscovy: A Comparative Perspective
What has been called the early modern military revolution may be described most simply as the replacement of small cavalry forces by huge gunpowder infantry armies. The revolution was a diffusionary process with a relatively well-understood chronology and geography. The innovations at its core began in northern Italy in the later fifteenth century and spread throughout central, northern, and eastern Europe in the three centuries that followed. Seen in this way, it was a unique and unitary phenomenon. Thus we speak ofthemilitary revolution, an episode in world history, instead of several different revolutions in the constituent parts of Europe. Nonetheless, the course and impact of the revolution were different in the regions it eventually affected.