Gunpowder Weaponry and the Rise of the Early Modern State

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S the 1988 publication of Geoffrey Parker’s The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800, the term ‘Military Revolution’ has become common parlance and accepted scholarship among military historians. Recent books and collections of articles by Brian M. Downing, Weston F. Cook Jr, David Eltis, Clifford J. Rogers, and Andrew Ayton and J.L. Price have even incorporated the term in their titles. All these works agreed that a revolution in military tactics and strategy had been effected by the innovation of gunpowder weaponry. And while it is true that the ‘Military Revolution’ thesis has had its critics, these, like Jeremy Black, John A. Lynn, Bert S. Hall and myself, have specifically targeted Parker’s ideas of technological determinism.