The primary seminar series for this course examines theories and explanations for changes in the conduct and character of warfare, with a focus upon (you guessed it) the role technology plays in said theories and explanations. A key theme of this seminar is the examination of periods of apparent rapid change, usually referred to as “military revolutions”. These are usually cut-off points, or periodisation points, by which people slice and dice military history into before/after categories, even if the exact boundaries of a given military revolution are hazy, and, as we’ll see, it is questionable whether they even exist. The second seminar for the course will continue with the theme of technology and periodisation.
Since this is the first time the course is running, we’ll be focusing upon the classic military revolution, which (in a nutshell) relates to the changing character of war in Europe due to the introduction of gunpowder.23 This is a very, very simplistic way of putting it. The seminar series begins in media res, that is, we will start with a debate between historians about “the military revolution” and then work through a number of competing theories for changes in the conduct of war, arguments over dates, focal points and geography, and general criticisms of the concept of military revolutions. To cut a long story short, we know change happened, but how, when, where, and why change happened is very much up for debate.
Do not worry if you are unfamiliar with early modern Europe and warfare - the course is designed to ease you in. That said, beyond the recommended chapters from Wayne E. Lee’s (2016) Waging War, you may wish to read Frank Tallett’s (2001) War and Society in Early Modern Europe, 1495-1715. For further reading, you can consult Frank Tallett and D.J.B. Trim’s edited volume (2010) European Warfare 1350-1750. In addition, you might also want to read Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks’ (2006) Early Modern Europe, 1450-1789 to round out your understanding of the period.
This seminar series is accompanied by group work.24 The full details of this work is outlined in chapter 10. Each group will be looking at a context for the military revolution in Europe, focusing upon connections between the military revolution and the Americas, West Africa, the Indies and and Asia, and the Ottoman Empire. The idea behind the group work is to give you a chance at performing a literature review and getting feedback on it prior to your assessed work on the course. It also enables you to understand a single context in detail, and a seminar will be dedicated to discussing the findings of the course. Lastly, the group work is designed so that each group produces learning resources for the group as a whole, so you will benefit from the work of your peers.25 This also means that if you really wanted to learn about West Africa but got stuck with the Ottoman Empire there will be a means available of rapidly learning about what you want by midway through the first term.
The question isn’t so much whether gunpowder changed the character of warfare, it is how it did so, when it did so, and when it began to do so. In this seminar we’ll be discussing Michael Roberts’ famous article that posited both a timeframe for the impact of gunpowder, but also identified a number of mechanisms by which the adoption of gunpowder changed warfare in Europe. Importantly, Roberts’ title, and thesis, implies the existence of “military revolutions” - short(ish) definable periods of history in which warfare changes in a dramatic fashion. We’ll be discussing the criticisms of Roberts’ thesis, which, collectively, have questioned almost all elements of his argument.
In this seminar, we’ll address the problem of measuring change in stable objects of analysis. One of the core features of the military revolution was not just change in military organisations (and increased professionalism), but changes in the character of the state itself. In this seminar we’ll be discussing problems of selection bias, but also measurement. After all, one of the defining features of Europe, and the wider world, in this period was the heterogeneity of political institutions and polity types. Is it even possible to compare these in a rational fashion, let alone measure change over time?
In this seminar we’ll look at explanations for changing patterns of warfare that examine the link between technology and culture. Cultural theories and explanations for differing patterns of warfare have been plentiful in recent years, but should also be treated with scepticisim, not least due to the nebulous use of “culture” as a variable. Here we will discuss some arguments about cultural continuities, such as the very odd notion that a “Western way” of warfare has persisted since the ancient Greeks, alongside more nuanced attempts to explain the influence of culture on warfare, as presented by John Lynn
Okay, so we know change happened, and so far we’ve covered some problems of objects, measurement, and variables, but what about processes? In this seminar we will look at the concept of adaptation as a conscious process, and one that is perhaps inherent to war and warfare. How and why do states adapt to threats? And how does technology, and technological innovation, fit within wider drivers for adaptation? One question to consider with this week’s readings is whether the tactical utility of a military technology leads us back to technological determinism, or whether the critiques of technological determinism that we’ve been looking at should lead us to critique the sense of tactical determinism one can get from writings about military technology.
One of the features of the military revolution is that war became more expensive to wage. Larger, professionalised armies became a key to victory on European battlefields. In this seminar, we’ll be discussing the political and social changes wrought by the military revolution as states sought to extract taxes to pay for these new military capabilities. This leads to interesting questions of what we foreground as revolutionary - was it the infantry, firearms and techniques of siege, or the reshaping of European states themselves?
When analysing and explaining change, it is always good to keep an eye on wider questions that may provide continuities. In this seminar we will be discussing the causes of war during the military revolution. Notably, did the causes of war in Europe change in any discernable way over the various timeframes given for the military revolution? If they did not, what does this say about the military revolution itself?
This is an open seminar, designed so that each group brings their project work to discuss criticisms that the military revolution is Eurocentric. Many people now use the term “military revolution” in a manner that implies a global scope, but how did changes in Europe during the military revolution alter or re-shape patterns of warfare in the world? Given the linkages of European states across the globe, is it possible to speak of warfare in Europe as an intra-European process?
In this seminar we’ll discuss the military revolution in terms of its effects on military institutions and military thought. In particular, we will be discussing the development of tactical innovations, such as volley fire, in the context of changes in military training and organisation that were required to sustain them. In tandem, we’ll look at perhaps one of the more interesting and important developments of the military revolution, which was the adoption and re-use of earlier military thinkers, such as Vegetius, by Europeans in order to develop new ways of waging war.
In this seminar we will loop back to some of the arguments about the appropriate starting point for the military revolution. In particular we will discuss the changing relations of cause and effect that are raised by moving the starting point of the military revolution earlier than Roberts’ original framing. This leads to the question of how we should analyse change over time - what does a search for key periods of rapid change do to the way we think about the changing character of warfare? As a counterpoint, we’ll consider whether approaches that seek to trace developments over large periods of time have anything meaningful to offer.
The warfare during the military revolution was not uniform in character. However, many non-historians usually use the idea of revolution and evolution with progressive undertones, that is ‘superior’ forms of warfare replacing older ones. In this seminar we will be looking at warfare in the wider world, in particular North America, where European colonists found that European styles of warfare were positively counter-productive in conflicts with native Americans. We’ll discuss what this kind of variation and heterogeneity says about the underlying “dominance” of ways of warfare developed in Europe.
This is the final seminar in the series, and we’ll finish by discussing what we’ve learned over the term, and in particular whether the concept of military revolutions holds any validity. In particular, we’ll be looking towards the present day, where many of the concepts that we have discussed this term are alive and well. We’ll be discussing the American debate about the “Revolution in Military Affairs” that went into overdrive after the American battlefield successes of the First Gulf War.
Adams, Simon. 1995. “Tactics or Politics? "The Military Revolution" and the Hapsburg Hegemony, 1525-1648.” In The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe, edited by Clifford J. Rogers. Westview Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kcl/detail.action?docID=746901.
Black, Jeremy. 2004. Rethinking Military History. Routledge.
Cohen, Eliot A. 1996. “A Revolution in Warfare.” Foreign Affairs 75 (2). Council on Foreign Relations:37–54. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20047487.
Gat, Azar. 2001. A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War. Oxford University Press.
Grenier, John. 2008. The First Way of War: American War Making on the Frontier, 1607-1814. Cambridge University Press.
Heuser, Beatrice. 2010. The Evolution of Strategy: Thinking War from Antiquity to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kcl/detail.action?docID=615787.
Heuser, Beatrice. 2012. “Denial of Change: The Military Revolution as Seen by Contemporaries.” International Bibliography of Military History 32 (1). Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill:3–27. https://brill.com/view/journals/ibmh/32/1/article-p3_2.xml.
Holsti, Kalevi J. 1991. Peace and War: Armed Conflicts and International Order, 1648-1989. Cambridge University Press.
James, Alan. 2006. “Warfare and the Rise of the State.” In Palgrave Advances in Modern Military History, edited by William J. Philpott and Matthew Hughes. Palgrave Macmillian. http://kcl.eblib.com/patron/FullRecord.aspx?p=293770.
Kiser, Edgar, and April Linton. 2001. “Determinants of the Growth of the State: War and Taxation in Early Modern France and England*.” Social Forces 80 (2):411–48. https://doi.org/10.1353/sof.2001.0099.
Krepinevich Jr, Andrew F. 2002. The Military-Technical Revolution: A Preliminary Assessment. Center for Strategic; Budgetary Assessments. https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/2002.10.02-Military-Technical-Revolution.pdf.
Lee, Wayne E. 2016. Waging War: Conflict, Culture, and Innovation in World History. Oxford University Press, USA.
Lynn, John A. 2004. Battle: A History of Combat and Culture: A History of Combat and Culture from Ancient Greece to Modern America. Basic Books.
Malone, Patrick M. 2000. The Skulking Way of War: Technology and Tactics Among the New England Indians. Lanham, MD: Madison Books. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kcl/detail.action?docID=1022121.
Nexon, Daniel H. 2009. The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change. Princeton University Press.
Parker, Geoffrey. 1976. “The "Military Revolution," 1560-1660–a Myth?” The Journal of Modern History 48 (2). University of Chicago Press:196–214. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1879826.
Parrott, David A. 1995. “Strategy and Tactics in the Thirty Years’ War: The ’Military Revolution’.” In The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe, edited by Clifford J. Rogers. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kcl/detail.action?docID=746901.
Roberts, Michael. 1995. “The Military Revolution, 1560-1660.” In The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe, edited by Clifford J. Rogers. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kcl/detail.action?docID=746901.
Rogers, Clifford J. 1995a. “The Military Revolution in History and Historiography.” In The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe, edited by Clifford J. Rogers. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kcl/detail.action?docID=746901.
Rogers, Clifford J. 1995b. “The Military Revolutions of the Hundred Years War.” In The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe, edited by Clifford J. Rogers. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kcl/detail.action?docID=746901.
Spruyt, Hendrik. 1996. The Sovereign State and Its Competitors: An Analysis of Systems Change. Princeton University Press.
Stone, John. 2004a. “Technology, Society, and the Infantry Revolution of the Fourteenth Century.” The Journal of Military History 68 (2). Society for Military History:361–80.
Tallett, Frank. 2001. War and Society in Early-Modern Europe, 1495-1715. Routledge.
Tallett, Frank, and D.J.B. Trim, eds. 2010. European Warfare 1350-1750. Cambridge University Press.
Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E. 2006. Early Modern Europe, 1450-1789. Cambridge University Press.