The military revolution in global history

2021 ◽  
pp. 223-238
Author(s):  
Tonio Andrade
Keyword(s):  
Global History ◽  
Military Revolution ◽  
The Military

Shakespeare and the ‘Military Revolution’

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Pugliatti
Keyword(s):  
Just War ◽  
Just War Theory ◽  
Ethics Of War ◽  
Technical Advances ◽  
Military Revolution ◽  
The Military

This chapter recounts how developments in the technology of battle had by Shakespeare’s time caught up with even the relatively resistant, cavalry-oriented English nobility. Outlining these technical advances, it discovers numerous moments in Shakespeare indicative of popular responsiveness to war and its new face. Alone among English writers, it was Shakespeare who (repeatedly) termed cannon-fire ‘devilish’; and the chapter demonstrates how different characters in 1Henry IV are on the turn in the long evolution from (equestrian) medieval chivalry, through (treacherous, infantry-deployed) gunpowder weapons, to the perfumed post-militarist courtier. It notes Shakespeare’s staged presentation of conscription as farcically at odds with the official theory of a voluntarism for able-bodied adults. Two soldiers miserably questioning the ethics of war the night before Agincourt prove well apprised of the Christian just war theory—yet Williams shrewdly contests its exculpation of royal leaders from responsibility for their subjects’ deaths.

The Hoplite Debate

Men of Bronze ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Kagan ◽  
Gregory F. Viggiano
Keyword(s):  
Driving Force ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Grand Narrative ◽  
Military Revolution ◽  
The Military

This chapter takes a more detailed look into the hoplite debate. It shows how modern historians of ancient Greece have come to develop a grand narrative. This “orthodoxy” explains the rise of the early polis in terms of a dramatic change or “revolution” in arms, armor, and tactics; the military revolution became a driving force behind the emergence of the characteristic political and social structures of the Greek state. A central part of the thesis is that the change in fighting style was directly related to recent innovations in arms and armor. Second, the phalanx depended on the weight and the cohesion of heavily armed men who employed “shock” tactics in brief but decisive battles. Third, it has been critical to identify the greatest number of hoplites with a middling group within the polis, which had the wealth to provide its own arms. Fourth, this middling group transformed Greek values.

The Consequences of the Military Revolution in Muscovy: A Comparative Perspective

1996 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 603-618 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marshall Poe
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
World History ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
Comparative Perspective ◽  
Military Revolution ◽  
The Military ◽  
The Revolution

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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document