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Title: The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe (History and Warfare) by Clifford J. Rogers ISBN: 0-8133-2054-2 Publisher: Westview Press Pub. Date: May, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $44.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.25 (4 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Defining the Debate
Comment: This book is a collection of essays and articles on the Military Revolution in early modern Europe. Eleven prominent historians contributed to the collection with original works or reprints of earlier articles. Taken together the anthology is not the sum total of the debate, but an excellent compilation of the several positions that military historians have taken and defended with regard to this topic.
The editor, Clifford J. Rodgers is now a contract professor at the United States Military Academy. When this book was created Rodgers was an Olin Fellow at Yale University. The book, according to Rodgers, was inspired by events during a conference at the 1991 meeting of the American Military Institute in Durham, North Carolina. During that conference Rodgers, Geoffrey Parker, John Guilmartin and John Lynn gave short presentations on the topic after which the discussion was opened to the audiance. The spirited debate and discourse that followed served as the catalyst for this book.
The Military Revolution was first put forward by Michael Roberts in the 1950s. Twenty years passed before Geoffrey Parker took a poke at the thesis. The fundamental idea here is that there are (or have been) times when something, be it technology, doctrine, social changes or economic changes, changed and caused one military to surpass all others such that the others had to adapt, adopt, or perish. That's a "Military Revolution" in a nutshell, and these historians argue (admittedly over, and over, and over...) as to what the periods that should be considered "revolutionary" actually were.
Informed and scholarly, this book is worth the cost from an intellectual standpoint.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Classic RMA Debate
Comment: "The Military Revolution Debate" is the magnus opus on the revolution in military affairs representative of early modern Europe. Editor and author Clifford Rogers presents a series of compelling articles designed to revisit one of the classic debate topics among military historians and contemporary theorists. The art and practice of warfare changed significantly during the period addressed by Rogers and others, a revolution in military affairs unlike any in previous history and only rivaled by the events of the past quarter-century.
This masterpiece is a necessary addition to anyone seriously researching the revolution/evolution of military affairs in the western world. The changes that occurred in early modern Europe and discussed at length by the various authors had an unimaginable ifluence on the wars of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries and will continue to shape events far into this millenium.
Rogers has collected the most serious and noteworthy essays by the foremost authorities on the subject. Readers will not be disappointed with this exceptional book.
Rating: 3
Summary: 'revolution'ary?
Comment: This reviewer has extensively analyzed this book as part of a course in late medieval and early renaissance military history. My usual subject is the early Crusades, and I had hoped to broaden my understanding of later centuries' conflicts through this work.
Rogers' introduction sums up the general theme of the book, that the demands of late medieval and early modern military (hen) required societal change on an broad and varied scale (egg). This is the one concept upon which the contributors agree.
The medievalist is going to find this work difficult in many respects, too numerous to investigate properly in this forum. Simply put, misconceptions abound. The basic thesis goes so far as to denigrate the medieval military era and divorce the modern from these roots entirely! Fortunately there are other contributors to counter this argument and even to argue the revolution was strictly a medieval phenomenon.
The essays herein are essentially divided into two camps of pro- and anti-revolution, and the book really demonstrates the evolution of the concept. The reader sees the genesis and construction of the idea, then its evaluation. Finally we see the demise of the concept in several vivid examples. The penultimate essay contributes a fine idea; the 'military revolution' is a line of inquiry, not a discrete event. (Unfortunately this is that essay's only redeeming feature.) The book closes with a defence by a long-standing subscriber to the revolution theory, thus failing to achieve any synthesis. It is a very disappointing end to what is a problematic but considerate effort.
Scope of the essays ranges from Sweden to the Ottoman Empire, from the Hundred Years War to the 18th.c., from the vast Spanish kingdom to the tiny county of Gonzaga. Focus varies from the general to the minute; there is an excellent analysis of the gold futures mortaging by the late medieval Spanish Crown.
In all it is a very long read for anyone not actively interested in the early modern period or the niceties of academic debate; indeed this reviewer is left with the impression that the revolutionary construct has had a long life and needs replacing.
However this book is certainly useful as a reference on the corpus of thought on a difficult subject, and crucial to understanding the last 50 years of research on the subject of medieval vs modern military practise. The revolution is now such a prevalent subject that it continues to be applied in completely different areas, so it is useful to be familiar with this work.
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Title: The Military Revolution : Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500-1800 by Geoffrey Parker ISBN: 0521479584 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: April, 1996 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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Title: War in European History by Michael Howard ISBN: 0192802089 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: December, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: War and the World: Military Power and the Fate of Continents, 1450-2000 by Jeremy Black ISBN: 0300082851 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 April, 2000 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
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Title: Art of War in the Middle Ages A. D. 378-1515 by Charles W. Oman, John H. Beeler ISBN: 0801490626 Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr Pub. Date: December, 1960 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300-2050 by MacGregor Knox, Williamson Murray ISBN: 052180079X Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 27 August, 2001 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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