Firepower, Paul Lockhart
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Firepower
How Weapons Shaped Warfare

Author: Paul Lockhart

Narrator: Brian Nishii

Unabridged: 21 hr 4 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Basic Books

Published: 10/19/2021


Synopsis

The “fascinating” (Wall Street Journal) story of how military technology has transformed the world

The history of warfare cannot be fully understood without considering the technology of killing. In Firepower, acclaimed historian Paul Lockhart tells the story of the evolution of weaponry and how it transformed not only the conduct of warfare but also the very structure of power in the West, from the Renaissance to the dawn of the atomic era. 

Across this period, improvements in firepower shaped the evolving art of war. For centuries, weaponry had remained simple enough that any state could equip a respectable army. That all changed around 1870, when the cost of investing in increasingly complicated technology soon meant that only a handful of great powers could afford to manufacture advanced weaponry, while other countries fell behind. Going beyond the battlefield, Firepower ultimately reveals how changes in weapons technology reshaped human history. 

Author Bio

Paul Lockhart is a professor of history specializing in early modern Europe, Scandinavian history, and military history at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. He has also taught at the Institut for Historie, Kultur og Samfundsbeskrivelse, Odense Universitet, in Denmark and at the State University of New York/Potsdam College. He is the author of Denmark, 1513–1660: The Rise and Decline of a Renaissance Monarchy and Frederik II and the Protestant Cause: Denmark's Role in the Wars of Religion, 1559–1596. Paul earned his M.A. and Ph.D. from Purdue University.

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