900s
A01=Tonio Andrade
Ammunition
Arquebus
Artillery
Author_Tonio Andrade
Beijing
Calculation
Carronade
Category=NHF
Category=NHW
Cavalry
Central Asia
Chen Youliang
China
Chinese culture
Confucianism
Crossbow
Early modern period
East Asia
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Europe
Fire arrow
Fire lance
Firearm
Firearm (tool)
Fortification
Great power
Guangdong
Guangzhou
Gunpowder
Handgun
Hegemony
Illustration
Imperial Japanese Navy
Infantry
Jiao Yu
Kaifeng
Li Hongzhang
Lin Zexu
Matchlock
Military history
Military technology
Ming dynasty
Mongols
Musket
Periodization
Projectile
Qi Jiguang
Qing dynasty
Self-Strengthening Movement
Shell (projectile)
Siege
Siege engine
Song dynasty
Southeast Asia
Steam engine
Steamship
Superiority (short story)
Technology
Treatise
Volley fire
Wang Yangming
War
Warfare
Warring States period
Weapon
Western Europe
Western Xia
Westernization
World history
Year
Yongle Emperor
Zheng (state)
Zheng Zhilong
Product details
- ISBN 9780691178141
- Weight: 709g
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 29 Aug 2017
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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The Chinese invented gunpowder and began exploring its military uses as early as the 900s, four centuries before the technology passed to the West. But by the early 1800s, China had fallen so far behind the West in gunpowder warfare that it was easily defeated by Britain in the Opium War of 1839-42. What happened? In The Gunpowder Age, Tonio Andrade offers a compelling new answer, opening a fresh perspective on a key question of world history: why did the countries of western Europe surge to global importance starting in the 1500s while China slipped behind? Historians have long argued that gunpowder weapons helped Europeans establish global hegemony. Yet the inhabitants of what is today China not only invented guns and bombs but also, as Andrade shows, continued to innovate in gunpowder technology through the early 1700s--much longer than previously thought. Why, then, did China become so vulnerable? Andrade argues that one significant reason is that it was out of practice fighting wars, having enjoyed nearly a century of relative peace, since 1760.
Indeed, he demonstrates that China--like Europe--was a powerful military innovator, particularly during times of great warfare, such as the violent century starting after the Opium War, when the Chinese once again quickly modernized their forces. Today, China is simply returning to its old position as one of the world's great military powers. By showing that China's military dynamism was deeper, longer lasting, and more quickly recovered than previously understood, The Gunpowder Age challenges long-standing explanations of the so-called Great Divergence between the West and Asia.
Tonio Andrade is professor of history at Emory University and the author of Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China's First Great Victory over the West (Princeton) and How Taiwan Became Chinese.
