This book studies the changes that have marked war in the Western World since the thirteenth century.

Well before the Industrial Revolution, Europe developed the superior military potential and expertise that enabled her to dominate the world for the next two centuries. In this attractively illustrated and updated edition, Geoffrey Parker discusses the major changes in the military practice of the West during this time period--establishment of bigger armies, creation of superior warships, the role of firearms--and argues that these major changes amounted to a "military revolution" that gave Westerners a decided advantage over people of other continents. A new chapter addresses the controversies engendered by the previous edition.

To examine the long-run origins of democracy and dictatorship, Brian Downing focuses on the importance of medieval political configurations and of military modernization in the early modern period. He maintains that in late medieval times an array of constitutional arrangements distinguished Western Europe from other parts of the world and predisposed it toward liberal democracy. He then looks at how medieval constitutionalism was affected by the "military revolution" of the early modern era--the shift from small, decentralized feudal levies to large standing armies. Downing won the American Political Science Association's Gabriel Almond Award for the dissertation on which this book was based.

This book brings together, for the first time, the classic articles that began and have shaped the debate about the Military Revolution in early modern Europe, adding important new essays by eminent historians of early modern Europe to further this important scholarly interchange.

The seventeenth century has long been seen as a period of 'crisis' or transition from the pre-modern to the modern world. This book offers a chance to explore this crisis from the perspective of war and military institutions in a way that should appeal to those doing global history. By placing 17th century warfare in a global context, Black challenges conventional chronologies and permits a reappraisal of the debate over what has been seen as the Military Revolution of the early-modern period. The book discusses war with regard to strategic cultures, assesses military capability in terms of tasks and challenges faced and attaches styles of warfare to their social and political contexts. Genuinely global in range, this up-to-date and wide-ranging account provides fresh historiographical insights into this crucial period in world history.

This book is a comprehensive study of the Iraq Wars in the context of the revolution in military affairs debate.