Beginning with the chapters on warfare in the first three volumes of the New Cambridge Modern History, Sir John Hale's writings on the subject present an original and rich assessment of war's place in Renaissance life and thought. The first section of this collection constitutes a major contribution to the study of Renaissance fortifications, their design, planning and execution, and their political as well as their military significance. The second deals with the recruitment and training of officers and men. In the third, contemporary reactions to war are analysed in a variety of social and intellectual contexts. The archival and literary sources drawn on are primarily Italian, in the second place English, but the imaginative scene is that of western Europe as a whole.

Beginning with the chapters on warfare in the first three volumes of the New Cambridge Modern History, Sir John Hale's writings on the subject present an original and rich assessment of war's place in Renaissance life and thought. The first section of this collection constitutes a major contribution to the study of Renaissance fortifications, their design, planning and execution, and their political as well as their military significance. The second deals with the recruitment and training of officers and men. In the third, contemporary reactions to war are analysed in a variety of social and intellectual contexts. The archival and literary sources drawn on are primarily Italian, in the second place English, but the imaginative scene is that of western Europe as a whole.

"Wide-ranging in place and time, yet tightly focused on particular concerns, these new and original specialist articles show how observations on the early history of warfare based on the relatively stable conditions of the late seventeenth century ignore the realities of war at sea in the middle ages and renaissance. In these studies, naval historians firmly grounded in the best current understanding of the period take account of developments in ships, guns and the language of public policy on war at sea, and in so doing give a stimulating introduction to five hundred years of maritime violence in Europe."--BOOK JACKET.

Winner of the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize from the Canadian Historical Association Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe explores the history of gunpowder in Europe from the thirteenth century, when it was first imported from China, to the sixteenth century, as firearms became central to the conduct of war. Bridging the fields of military history and the history of technology—and challenging past assumptions about Europe's "gunpowder revolution"—Hall discovers a complex and fascinating story. Military inventors faced a host of challenges, he finds, from Europe's lack of naturally occurring saltpeter—one of gunpowder's major components—to the limitations of smooth-bore firearms. Manufacturing cheap, reliable gunpowder proved a difficult feat, as did making firearms that had reasonably predictable performance characteristics. Hall details the efforts of armorers across Europe as they experimented with a variety of gunpowder recipes and gunsmithing techniques, and he examines the integration of new weapons into the existing structure of European warfare.

"Covering the years between the end of the Hundred Years War and the beginning of the Thirty Years War, this book explains the part played by war in the lives of individuals in the early modern phase of European history."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Renaissance military memoirs studied for what they reveal of contemporary attitudes towards war, selfhood and identity. This is a study of autobiographical writings of Renaissance soldiers. It outlines the ways in which they reflect Renaissance cultural, political and historical consciousness, with a particular focus on conceptions of war, history, selfhood and identity. A vivid picture of Renaissance military life and military mentality emerges, which sheds light on the attitude of Renaissance soldiers both towards contemporary historical developments such as the rise of the modern state, and towards such issues as comradeship, women, honor, violence, and death. Comparison with similar medieval and twentieth-century material highlights the differences in the Renaissance soldier's understanding of war and of human experience.