The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300–2050

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

MacGregor Knox (Edited by), Williamson Murray (Edited by)

9780521800792, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 August 2001

218 pages, 3 b/w illus. 2 tables
23.1 x 15.5 x 2.3 cm, 0.45 kg

'… there is a fine scholarship, perceptive judgment and much of interest in the collection …'. English Historical Review

The Dynamics of Military Revolution aims to bridge a major gap in the emerging literature on revolutions in military affairs, suggesting that there have been two very different phenomena at work over the past centuries: 'military revolutions', which are driven by vast social and political changes; and 'revolutions in military affairs', which military institutions have directed, although usually with great difficulty and ambiguous results. By providing both a conceptual framework and a historical context for thinking about revolutionary changes in military affairs, the work establishes a baseline for understanding the patterns of change, innovation, and adaptation that have marked war in the Western World since the thirteenth century - beginning with Edward III's revolutionary changes in medieval warfare, through the development of modern Western military institutions in seventeenth-century France, to the cataclysmic changes of the First World War and the German Blitzkrieg victories of 1940. This history provides a guide for thinking about military revolutions in the coming century, which are as inevitable as they are difficult to predict.

1. Introduction Williamson Murray and MacGregor Knox
2. 'As if a new sun had arisen': England's fourteenth-century RMA Clifford J. Rogers
3. Forging the Western army in seventeenth-century France John A. Lynn
4. Mass politics and nationalism as military revolution: the French Revolution and after MacGregor Knox
5. Surviving military revolution: the US Civil War Mark Grimsley
6. The Prusso-German RMA, 1840–71 Dennis E. Showalter
7. The battlefleet revolution, 1885–1914 Holger H. Herwig
8. The First World War and the birth of modern warfare Jonathan B. A. Bailey
9. May 1940: contingency and fragility of the German RMA Williamson Murray
10. Conclusion: the future behind us Williamson Murray and MacGregor Knox.

Subject Areas: Warfare & defence [JW], Revolutionary groups & movements [JPWQ], Revolutions, uprisings, rebellions [HBTV], General & world history [HBG]