Book Description
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.
Customer Reviews:
Michael Roberts (Modified & Expanded).......2007-01-31
During the 1990s, it was fashionable in the defense intellectual community to talk and write about a military revolution driven by the advances of the Information Age. The concept of a "military revolution" can trace its lineage back to a lecture given by the British historian Michael Roberts at Queen's University in Belfast in January 1955 titled "The military revolution 1560-1660." Thirty years later Geoffrey Parker delivered a series of lectures at Trinity College, Cambridge, that endorsed, but modified Roberts' original and highly influential thesis, and which was ultimately turned into book form as "The Military Revolution: Military innovation and the rise of the West, 1500-1800."
It is important to clearly state Parker's main objective in writing this piece. He notes that much scholarly attention has been devoted to explaining the rapid conquest by western states during the 19th century. It has been claimed that between 1800 and 1914 the West went from controlling 35% of the earth's surface to 84%. Here Parker endeavors to explain how the West came to control the first 35%, which cannot be explained by the Industrial Revolution, and his explanation is derived from Roberts' original thesis of a military revolution in the 16th century.
Parker accepts but modifies Roberts' general argument that a fundamental change in tactics, accompanied by a stunning growth in army size, the development of complex strategies, and the profound impact of military operations on society led to a military revolution that had deep and lasting consequences. To begin with, Parker suggests that the impact of the military revolution was much slower to develop and much less decisive than Roberts had argued. Thus, where Roberts' revolution is contained in a one hundred year period (1560-1660), Parker sees a revolution that unfolded over a period that began a bit earlier (1500) and took much longer to mature (1800). Next, he sees the rise of modern fortifications, especially the famed trace italienne, as the truly distinguishing characteristic of the revolutionary period, and not the tight drill of handheld firearm weaponry by infantry units as argued by Roberts and brought to perfection by the Swedish army of Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years War. Parker suggests that Roberts over-emphasized the importance of tactical changes in set piece battles, such Breitenfeld (1631) or Lutzen (1632), which occurred in Germany precisely because of the absence of modern trace italienne fortifications. It was the artillery fortifications that drove the rapid expanse in army size and logistical sophistication, Parker argues, and not mobile infantry firepower.
Parker sees a clearly definable progression of military development. First came the maturation of gunpowder artillery, which so clearly obsolesced the high and thin fortification walls of Italy in the French invasion of 1494. Second, in response to the power of siege artillery against classical walls developed to thwart scaling attacks, a new form of fortification was low, thick and oblique in design (not to mention incredible expensive), which diffused all through out the lands of the Hapsburgs in Western Europe and were effective against artillery barrage. Third, the answer to conquering the new "artillery fortresses" was massive manpower to strangle the strongpoint into submission over a long period of time. Fourth, in order to recruit, supply, and pay such forces of unprecedented size required a bureaucratic revolution that ultimately changed the face of governments in Europe and, in Roberts' and Parker's view, led directly to the rise absolutism. Finally, and central to the whole thesis of the book, Parker maintains that the combination of artillery firepower, large armies with an infrastructure to support them, and nearly impregnable artillery fortresses to garrison conquered land combined to serve as the engine of empire in the early days of Western expansion, leading directly to conquest of one-third of the world by dawn of the 19th century.
This book is a great read and a vivid introduction to the topic of the military revolution of the 16th century. I can't remember the last time I read a serious work of history that included so many relevant and useful pictures, diagrams, and maps. It is highly recommended to anyone with an interest in early Modern Europe, military innovation, or western imperialism.
Well Written, Concise, But Imperfect .......2006-02-13
In this well written and concise book, Geoffrey Parker argues that a revolution in European fighting methods in this era transformed Europe and gave Europeans a military advantage over the rest of the world. As a result, by 1800 European powers held substantial empires which they would expand greatly in the eighteen and nineteen hundreds. Parker gives convincing arguments on the advantages of gunpowder weapons, superior European organization, superior European naval power, and the ruthlessness of European warfare compared to that of some opponents. What is less convincing is the emphasis on the Italian trace system of fortifications and the supposedly resulting increase in army size and weakness of smaller states. Good coherent coverage is given to naval warfare and early imperialism, like the Portuguese and Dutch in Indonesia as well as later British success in India. The efforts of non-western powers to adapt to the revolution are also covered, as well as eastern practices of impoundment of goods as a substitute for strong naval power. This book is excellent, but for a fuller view, please also read "The Military Revolution Debate" edited by Clifford Rogers.
Excellence........2003-11-25
Geoffrey Parker work can be considered a milestone in its field. A really excellent book.
A Cause and Effect Look at Early Modern European Art of War.......2003-02-10
Geoffrey Parker argues that during the 16th Century a "military revolution" occurred that profoundly changed the way Europeans conducted warfare. This revolution involved four distinct changes in the art of war: a change in tactics; a marked growth in the size of armies; more ambitious and complex military/political strategies; and an acute impact on society as a whole. Parker further contends that the initial imperial gains and conquests by European nations (before the full impact of the Industrial Revolution was felt) would not have been possible had it not been for these revolutionary changes. Not all historians of early modern European military history agree with Parker's argument. In the Second Edition, Parker answers his critics in an updated addendum (for those who enjoy conversational footnotes, Parker does seem to have a particular axe to grind with the historian John A. Lynn and vice-versa)..Parker incorporates a thread of cause and effect to illustrate his claims. For example: the technological advancements in firepower in the form of larger canons, prompted the wide spread development of the bastion fortifications system known as trace italienne. These improved fortifications required larger garrisons as well as larger siege armies of the opposing enemy. Infantry became the core of these new and expanded armies of Europe. Larger armies created the need for revised tactics as well as improved logistical, supply, medical, and financial solutions. All of these factors had a direct upon the societies that depended upon these armies for protection. Parker applies similar cause and effect methodology in a discussion of sea power. Though Parker is a known scholar of early modern Europe, he turns his analysis into a global study by comparing and contrasting the European art of war with various non-western armies and empires. Parker discusses the reactions, adaptations, successes or failures of Near Eastern (Muslim, Ottoman, Indian, and African) and Far Eastern (China, Japan, Southeast Asia) armies in their contacts with the west.Parker consults a vast array of archival material. From Machiavelli to an assortment of 16th Century French, Spanish, Dutch, German and British documents in varying native languages, Parkers research is truly impressive. Absent, however, are non-western sources turning this "global" analysis into one from a western perspective. European colonial contacts with the east are seen only through western eyes in Parker's study. Sprinkled throughout the book are period etchings and engravings that Parker utilizes to support his premises. As an art history lover, however, I would have liked to have seen a description of the art work itself in the caption.Parker writes well. The author blends a well developed scholarly argument with historical narrative with great effect. For the most part, Parker maintained a set literary style throughout that held the reader's interest. One flaw, however, is the author's tendency to make a point early in a paragraph, then support his claim with a "list" of obscure little known European battles. One would have to be well versed in European military history to be on the same page with Parker on these rare instances. A solution would be to "list" fewer examples and explain "why" this particular battle supports the point he is illustrating.This is a must read for the serious student of military history though not for the faint of heart.
What makes a revolution?.......2000-10-18
The purist may not appreciate the title of this excellent survey of the rise of Western European military and eventually cultural dominance. Any revolution that takes 300 years to accomplish begs the question. The subtitle is more revealing, and more accurately portrays the content of the book. The years of 1500 to 1800 indeed saw a series of military innovations that directly contributed to Western military hegemony.
What the author has done, which is truly unique, is to survey the innovations and to document how they affected events in Europe and elsewhere. A good part of the book accounts for developments in sail and guns and global exploration and confrontation. Also discussed is how other societies such as the Ottomans, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, and others reacted or failed to react to these developments. In this course, Parker proves his thesis of how the West gained its "35%" toehold on the globe by 1800, which set the course for the century of rabid imperialism.
There is more detail to be found in other sources, but the synthesis of analysis is what marks this contribution as one of the best in the history of early modern Europe.
Customer Reviews:
Outstanding Comparative Analysis.......2004-08-07
Written over 40 years ago, The Age of the Democratic Revolution is still the major effort at interpreting the political upheavals of the late 18th century. Covering a remarkably broad range of societies, Palmer deals with France, the American Revolution, Britain, the Holy Roman Empire, various German states, Russia, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. This is an effort to reveal the major structural features of political and social conflict in what Palmer refers to as the Atlantic world. Since he has extensive discussion of Eastern Europe as well, it might be better to describe his frame as something like Greater Europe. In order to produce his major structural analyses, Palmer narrrates and analyzes events across several decades and across several countries. It is a measure of the quality of Palmer's scholarship and writing ability that this book serves as a excellent narrative overview of the political and diplomatic history of many of the countries discussed. Not surprisingly, France and the events generated by the French Revolution occupy a central place but one of the most impressive things about this book is how Palmer features the importance of events in places like Holland and the Austrian controlled parts of Italy. Even the tiny Genevan republic and Ireland receive thorough and enlightening coverage.
Palmer sees the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and allied events as driven by the collision of a series of pan-European forces. He points out that the first half of the 18th century had actually seen a hardening of social barriers, a decline in social mobility, and increasing dominance of important political institutions by smaller inherited elites. The increasingly aristocratic nature of many European societies was opposed to a very large extent by Monarchies wishing to extend their authority. The financial strains imposed by the Seven Years War appear to have been particularly important in prompting several governments, France, Britain, and even the Holy Roman Empire, into attempts to extend royal power and reduce the power of traditional and aristocratically dominated institutions. Implicit in Palmer's analysis is that the humanitarianism of the Enlightenment had produced alternative ways of looking at society and governance that undermined the legitimacy of aristrocratic institutions and social structure based on deference. Ironically, some aspects of Enlightenment political theory were used to defend traditional institutions. Over the course of the second half of the 18th century, this collision produces, at least initially, aristocratic success in turning back the challenges to traditional institutions. In many countries, notably France, the aristocratic revolution is followed is then followed by Democratic Revolutions resulting in the ultimate destruction of a huge array of traditional politcal and social institutions. Palmer has thoughtful discussions of the varying aspects of this general phenomenon in a large array of nations. Britain and the American colonies prove to be important exceptions to the general model and their unique features result in the American Revolution and what can only be called a relatively peaceful counter-revolution in Britain.
This is then followed by a superb series of discussions of the consequences of the Democratic Revolutions throughout Europe and North America.
Some aspects of Palmer's analysis are probably incorrect. This is not surprising as he wrote over 40 years ago and there has been a lot of important scholarship since the publication of this book. For example, I think Palmer is a bit unfair to Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists in the USA. I suspect that some will find this book, with its emphasis on political history, a bit old-fashioned. These, however, are quibbles. In terms of breadth of understanding and depth of analysis, this is a truly outstanding work of scholarship.
Book Description
The three centuries following the discovery of the New World was a period of unprecedented global expansion, spearheaded by the lusty armies of the imperial European powers. This volume of The Cambridge Illustrated Atlases of Warfare is a lively and elaborately illustrated study of warfare during the early modern period, ranging from the European Renaissance to the American Revolution. Unique color maps and authoritative text illuminate the major military and naval developments that characterized the period. Feature boxes describe key events, important military confrontations, individual tacticians, battle strategies and weapons. Throughout, the author pays particular attention to the effects of European military expansion on the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the Mediterranean. This comprehensive and accessible book about a fascinating and important period will appeal to war buffs and historians alike.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent reference.......2004-01-06
This book, and its companion, covering The Middle Ages, 768-1487 and Renaissance to Revolution, 1492-1792, though with different authors, form an elegant pair of references. They cover a period that is infrequently covered in much detail, and rarely illustrated with any maps, much less the excellent examples here. My primary use for these books is as aids when reading both history and, even more, historical fiction such as Sharon Kay Penman, Dorothy Dunnett and Neal Stephenson. These authors write intricately plotted tapestries that rely heavily on movements in historical time, but their publishers include only incidental maps. These volumes supply a much needed reference for readers who are not quite au courant with the 3rd Anglo Dutch War, or the rise of Maratha India. The accompanying text gives an adequate survey of the time, but the primary emphasis is `rightly on the illustrated portion. The maps are beautifully designed, and easily deciphered, covering both individual battles and broader strategic concepts.
It's not bad...not great, but not bad.......2001-12-14
This isn't a bad book especially if you are looking for a good, general history of warfare during this time period.
At times the author gets a little heavy handed with the political correctness. For example, he states in the preface how he wanted to move away from the "customary dominance by western European developments". Then on the very next page he says "it is all too easy to take a Eurocentric perspective..."
Whatever. Can't historians just write their books nowadays without having to drag all this PC baggage around with them?
If you can slog through the rhetoric this book isn't so bad.
Not for the Wargamer or Military Historian.......2001-06-25
This Atlas is too general for the Military Historian and wargamer, but is a nice worldwide historical overview. It does have some good political maps, but there are not a lot of them, and they are only snapshots far apart in time. When I think of an Atlas I think of page followed by page of maps. This book is mostly text with many illustrative maps, and lots of non-map pictures. It is not as detailed as some other historical Atlases. I do not mean to disparage this work, it is a very good, very colorful overview, and puts military history in context. It is not however, a book that will provide informative maps for the Military Historian, or gaming enthusiast. Definately a book to check out of the library, It would be a good buy as a color paperback, unfortunately I paid for a hard copy.
Brilliant and provoking.......2000-05-15
Black's clear advantage was that the timeline span of the subject was avoided by most historians, probably because it's difficult to compile into a single piece of work. But, Black have done it in a fashion, arguably, very original than most historical atlases.
The special maps and themes are divided into daunting blocks of adventure and you'll not stop until the last pages. There are new insights into the clashes between Portugal and Utsmani Devlet in and around the Indian Ocean.
Let's hope more works come out from this author, at least from the Cambridge Series. In the end, you'll wish the pages were much longer as your thirst grew unbearable.
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Thomas Jefferson's Travels in Europe, 1784-1789
George Green Shackleford
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson
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Jefferson Abroad (Modern Library)
ASIN: 0801859506 |
Book Description
"Shackelford captures Jefferson's intellectual vitality, his cultured interests, and the esteem in which he was held by so many who came into contact with him... [His] splendid account of Jefferson abroad captures what he was truly about." -- Times Literary Supplement
"An intimate and richly detailed description of Jefferson's encounters with European culture... Shackelford's contribution to the study of Jefferson's intellect is as attractive as it is substantive in contributing to our understanding of Jefferson's intellect and the forces that shaped it." -- Georgia Historical Quarterly
"This is a beautiful book: graceful in prose and rich in illustrations." -- Journal of American History
During his time as minister to the court of Louis XVI, from 1784 to 1789, Thomas Jefferson became not only a friend of France but also the champion of European culture in the United States. Because the man who was to become America's third president learned so much from his five years abroad -- about the fine arts of architecture and painting and about the practical arts of agriculture, bureaucracy, and commerce -- his stay in Europe remains one of the most important of any American before or since. Illustrated with more than sixty images of the actual places the future president visited and described -- including both contemporary works and new photographs -- Jefferson's Travels in Europe is the first book to describe and explore the significance of Jefferson's European journey, detailing the sights he visited, the people he met, and the events he attended. Based on extensive research into Jefferson's account books and correspondence, as well as the experiences of other travelers of the day, George Green Shackelford connects Jefferson's journeys in France, England, Italy, the Netherlands, and the German Rhineland to his intellectual and aesthetic development.
"Immaculately researched, thoughtful, and persuasive... A valuable, handsomely produced book." -- Journal of the Early Republic
"An engaging account of important cultural landmarks in late eighteenth-century Europe and... a useful contribution to the literature on Thomas Jefferson, providing an insight into the private man and his wide circle of friends in Europe. It reminds us again of the vitality and comprehensiveness of Jefferson's interests." -- Journal of Southern History
"A meticulously researched and presented work that increases our knowledge of this period of Jefferson's life." -- William and Mary Quarterly
[original long copy]"While Americans generally still consider Thomas Jefferson to be a veritable Apostle of Americanism, it was his foreign residence and travels that made him America's most sophisticated national leader. To understand how Thomas Jefferson completed his metamorphosis from a talented provincial, it is necessary to reconstitute what he saw on his European journeys, to describe where he lived in Europe, and to speak of how his European friends influenced him."--George Green Shackelford, in Thomas Jefferson's Travels in Europe.
During his time as minister to the court of Louis XVI, from 1784 to 1789, Thomas Jefferson became not only a friend of France but also the champion of European culture in the United States. Because the man who was to become America's third president learned so much from his five years abroad--about the fine arts of architecture and painting and about the practical arts of agriculture, bureaucracy, and commerce--his stay in Europe remains one of the most important of any American before or since. In the first book to describe and explore the significance of Jefferson's European journey, George Green Shackelford offers the reader an intimate and richly detailed account of what Jefferson saw and how he saw it. In the process, he assesses the influence on Jefferson of such figures as the architect Charles Louis Clérisseau and the artist Maria Cosway.
Illustrated with more than sixty images of the actual places Jefferson visited and described--including both contemporary works and new photographs-- Jefferson's Travels in Europe shows how Jefferson's journeys in France, England, Italy, the Netherlands, and the German Rhineland shaped his intellectual and aesthetic development. Coaxing meaning out of Jefferson's account books and correspondence, and the parallel experiences of other travelers of the day, Shackelford has created a unique document, one that bears "a general resemblance to the book that Thomas Jefferson never wrote, his Notes on Europe."
Book Description
What explains the rapid growth of state power in early modern Europe? While most scholars have pointed to the impact of military or capitalist revolutions, Philip S. Gorski argues instead for the importance of a disciplinary revolution unleashed by the Reformation. By refining and diffusing a variety of disciplinary techniques and strategies, such as communal surveillance, control through incarceration, and bureaucratic office-holding, Calvin and his followers created an infrastructure of religious governance and social control that served as a model for the rest of Europe—and the world.
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Book Description
The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed a fundamental transformation in how nature was understood and studied, a transformation which came to be known as the Scientific Revolution. This book introduces students to the best recent writings on this important era in the history of science. It presents innovative work by scholars who have been at the forefront of reinterpreting the Scientific Revolution, as well as seminal work by an older generation of scholars.The volume opens with a substantial editorial essay outlining the most important developments in approaches to the Scientific Revolution over the past two decades. The readings themselves embrace a wide range of subjects, including astronomy, natural history, alchemy, medicine, and technology. Each one is preceded by a short introduction, setting the material in context. The book concludes with an essay which rejects the notion of the Scientific Revolution entirely.
Book Description
Although the importance of the advent of printing for Western civilisation has long been recognised, it was Professor Eisenstein, in her monumental, two-volume work, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, who provided the first full-scale treatment of the subject. This illustrated and abridged edition of Professor Eisenstein’s study gives a stimulating survey of the communications revolution of the fifteenth century. It begins with a discussion of the general implications of the introduction of printing, and then explores how the shift from script to print entered into the three major movements of early modern times: the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the rise of modern science.
Customer Reviews:
groundbreaking history of printing .......2005-06-29
Little was understood about the relationship of printing to the social movements of the Early Modern period before Elizabeth Eisenstein seized on the opportunity to give an in depth treatment to the history of printing in Europe in The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. In addressing a void in the field of communications history, Eisenstein has provided new clues and new answers for old questions. At the same time, the very method of taking printing as a principal historical force creates some tensions in the historical account. The conception of printing as a revolution gives to communications and history some useful observations while also producing some particular problems.
This book is an abridged version of Eisenstein's 1979 The Printing Press as an Agent of Change. While that was a two volume work, the material has been condensed in The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe into two sections each paralleling a volume of the full-scale work. The sense that the later book, first published in 1983, is for a more general audience is most evident in the lack of citations and references. One is directed to the original for these. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe has also included for this audience wonderful illustrations, which are not in the original.
The research for this work arose from the scholar's feeling that inquiry of this kind simply had not been done. Eisenstein had encountered historians and communications scholars who encouraged her to question the consequences of print. Her attempts to explore these questions through the literature on the shift from script to print in her own field made the lack of study glaringly obvious: there was no historical literature, nor a literature in any other field, manifestly exploring print in its relationship to contemporary social formations and movements.
There had been a number of others before Eisenstein who had recognized that printing was somehow important. However, no one before Eisenstein set about the task of describing why and how printing related to other social changes (5). Eisenstein accounts for this startling lack of historical work, describing an instance when Pierce Butler implied that there was something obvious about the relationship between print and the end of medieval times, by saying that "[t]his is partly because the very act of drawing connections is not as easy a task as one might think" (111). Throughout the book she makes references to the idea that historians and others knew that there were "implications" of print, but did not understand them in any substantive way.
Eisenstein sets a reasonable goal in the face of a dearth of research. While much needs to be done, Eisenstein's work is to be a first step into examining the consequences of the shift from script to print. She is clear that this is a beginning, a place to start to understand what changes in the fifteenth century and onward are related to print and how they are related. The book is not meant to fill the void in scholarship but to outline the questions and suggest areas for further study.
The revolutionary character of print is due, in part, to the greatly increased access to texts that printing afforded over manuscripts. Greater access came from the ability to produce many copies of a text at once, which simply made more texts available, as well as to the wider dispersion that printing allowed (42). A scholar in his home could have copies of many texts by the time of Copernicus' death. A scholar could have a library of his own by 1560 (208). Even the unschooled could have a bible in his home in his own language, through the interaction of printing with the move to the vernacular.
While other scholars had remarked on the greater dispersion of texts made possible by print, made particularly visible in studies of Protestantism, another more important attribute was less visible. Eisenstein argues that "typographical fixity" was a new and crucial effect of the printing press (xi). The notion of typographical fixity is one of the key elements in The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. Eisenstein argues that the preservative powers of print delivered information to readers in a whole new way, thus allowing scientific and cultural developments to unfold as they did.
Some Renaissance scholars noted this effect, but no one studied the implications this standardization had. "By and large, the effects of this new process are vaguely implied rather than explicitly defined and are also drastically minimized" (42). In chapter five, Eisenstein argues that one implication of typographical fixity was to make what we now call the Renaissance "permanent" whereas two earlier classical revivals had come and gone (117). Here is another example of scholars skimming a print-related topic which yields a new analysis when Eisenstein fully examines it from the vantage point of print.
Eisenstein's persuasive arguments go a long way to establishing the importance of printing. She argues that a fully developed history of printing as it relates to social change has been neglected and demonstrates that once attention is placed on the printing press, old puzzles are solved. One wonders if the case is not somewhat overstated, however, through the particular view of history Eisenstein develops. This is a version of history skewed to look at the printing press as an agent of historical change. For Eisenstein, it is necessarily skewed, first, to correct the inattention of scholars to the importance of print then to explain cultural and intellectual movements. However, the very explanations that arise from her discussion of the printing press may be more due to the interpretation made possible by focussing on printing in history. Eisenstein convinces us that printing has been overlooked and that it is important, but the next step she takes, to argue that printing has a "revolutionary character," is intertwined with her very standpoint which is focussed on the centrality of printing.
the last 2 chapters were my favorite.......2003-07-31
This is an excellent book to read if you are interested in the history of printing. Eisenstein's thesis is that the advent of the printing press is the most logical point at which the medieval period of European history ends and the Renaissance begins. She shows how many so-called innovations in science, religion, and politics were directly related to the ready availability of books-not necessarily to increased brilliance on the part of mankind.
Eisenstein disagrees with scholars who point to the lag between the press and the beginning of the Renaissance as proof that the press did not make an appreciable difference. Books, Eisenstein says, had to accumulate in order to make their presence felt. The lag was due to a sort of scholarly catch-up. First the printers rushed to issue the volumes that many people wanted but had been unable to afford previously. Once those were printed, disparities could become apparent. Scribes freed from the tedious process of copying books had the leisure to notice errors and disagreements among authors which had not been apparent when books were scattered and rare. This process caused a deceptive lag between the advent of the press and real improvements in cartography and science.
The last two chapters of the book were the most interesting to me. Among other things, Eisenstein talks about the way early Protestant printers beefed out their catalogues by referring to the Catholic Index (the list of books forbidden by the Pope). Once Europe became split into Catholic and Protestant nations, the Index had the unexpected effect of boosting sales for books listed on the Index, making some protestant printers their fortunes. Not only were Protestants eager to read whatever the Pope had banned (and Catholic priests obligingly cited chapter and line of objectionable material, with the result that the protestant scholars were able to cut right to the chase), but many early scientific books on the Index were much sought after in Catholic countries, and with their printers under heavy pressure to forbear, Protestant printers just over the border made a fortune in black-market books.
Eisenstein's style is somewhat pedantic (which was to be expected; this is a thesis, after all). However, I give the book 4 stars instead of 5 because quotes are frequently uncited-a nearly unforgivable sin in a research book. We are frequently given rather large blocks of quoted text with absolutely no way of connecting this material to any given authors in the bibliography. The fact that the book is an abridgement is no excuse.
Less then invigorating.......2001-11-08
I found Eisensten's book to be less then invigorating. She manages to contradict herself within the first five pages and is quite set on the fact that nobody seems to document the effect of the printing press. We were forced to read this awful piece of literature for my Renaissance, Reformation, and Revolution class. With every assignment we tried to grasp what exactly Eisenstein was trying to say without any luck. I would not recommend this torture to anyone. She's just a psycho lady in love with the printing press.
Read the *unabridged version*|.......1999-10-10
This book is fine, but it doesn't really capture the full power of the unabridged version: "The Printing Press as an Agent of Change" (2 vols in 1; Cambridge Univ. Press -- possibly currently out of print). The unabridged version (which is still much too short!) is one of the great books of the 20th century. I just didn't see the abridged versino as really "bringing home" the significance of Eisenstein's theses about the effects of print technology on Western civilization.
Astute, insightful scholarship on a crucial topic........1998-09-28
Professor Eisenstein has answered a question I have been asking myself for thirty years. I knew that "modern" Europe consisted of institutions based upon the "individual" -- protestantism, capitalism, universal education and modern science -- and that these first arose in Europe about 500 years ago. But I could not answer why then? And why Europe? I suspected that it had to do with the rise of stranger experience but could not locate a convincing historical cause for it. Print literacy first occured to me as the cause when I read Walter Ong's book, "Orality and Literacy," which also happily cited Prof. Eisenstein's work. Her book convincingly implicates the print revolution with the rise of the Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation and Modern Science.Her thesis made it easy for me to see how the other three institutions could be included as well and to see the role of print in spreading "individuation" and assumptions associated with it, such as the idea of progress. It is remarkable that historians have apparently ignored for so long the role of print literacy in creating modernity. Scholars, including myself, sometimes seem to find the obvious the most inscrutable. Anyway, my personal and heartfelt thanks go to Professor Eisenstein for answering my nagging question.
Book Description
What can the great crises of the past teach us about contemporary revolutions? Arguing from an exciting and original perspective, Goldstone suggests that great revolutions were the product of 'ecological crises' that occurred when inflexible political, economic, and social institutions were overwhelmed by the cumulative pressure of population growth on limited available resources. Moreover, he contends that the causes of the great revolutions of Europe--the English and French revolutions--were similar to those of the great rebellions of Asia, which shattered dynasties in Ottoman Turkey, China, and Japan.
The author observes that revolutions and rebellions have more often produced a crushing state orthodoxy than liberal institutions, leading to the conclusion that perhaps it is vain to expect revolution to bring democracy and economic progress. Instead, contends Goldstone, the path to these goals must begin with respect for individual liberty rather than authoritarian movements of 'national liberation.'
Arguing that the threat of revolution is still with us, Goldstone urges us to heed the lessons of the past. He sees in the United States a repetition of the behavior patterns that have led to internal decay and international decline in the past, a situation calling for new leadership and careful attention to the balance between our consumption and our resources.
Meticulously researched, forcefully argued, and strikingly original, Revolutions and Rebellions in the Early Modern World is a tour de force by a brilliant young scholar. It is a book that will surely engender much discussion and debate.
Book Description
War was a major engine of modern state-development in the medieval and early modern periods throughout Europe. While the idea of a military revolution - the creation of modern armies and the centralized state - has been traditionally seen as a 17th-century development, more recent scholarship has placed it in the 16th century and before. The contributors to this book offer perspectives on the early modern period.
Customer Reviews:
What Revolution?.......2000-04-16
This is a collection of nine essays spanning subjects from the 1066 Norman conquest of England to the Dutch Republic in the 17th century. I found John Walker's essay on the English Templars most interesting. Maybe I've been working in this field too long to be objective, but despite the generally high calibre of these essays, I don't feel like the book met it's stated goal. I find little about them that is actually "revolutionary". Maybe it's just a case that "The Medieval Military EVOLUTION" was just too dull. Taken individually however, the component essays are all interesting and I would recommend them to anyone interested in medieval military history. The parts being more than the sum of the whole, I suppose.
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