Firepower, Paul Lockhart
Firepower, Paul Lockhart
List: $44.99 | Sale: $31.50
Club: $22.49

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. 

About Paul Lockhart

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.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Daniel on July 21, 2021

A thorough and probing look at the NRA’s history and a solid piece of political science as well. The quantitative language analyses fascinated me. I tended to agree with most of the arguments, which suggest that the real power of the NRA has come from its hugely successful identity-making.......more

Goodreads review by Bjarni on February 06, 2023

Interesting and informative, 3.5 stars out of 5 stars.......more

Goodreads review by Ellie on June 25, 2024

Read for class. Pretty good. Interesting case study of the NRA.......more


Quotes

“Do new weapons create novel tactics and strategy or simply enhance unchanging doctrines? Paul Lockhart’s exhaustive study of the origins, role, and evolution of gunpowder weapons answers that neither war nor the world itself has ever been the same after the introduction of guns. His tour of the spread of gunpowder weaponry from the fifteenth century to the present is itself a tour de force of facts, analysis, and engaging prose. A riveting history of how five hundred years of gunpowder have changed the way hundreds of millions have lived—and died.”—Victor Davis Hanson, author of The Second World Wars

Firepower makes the essential connection between technology and power, from the pike and the arquebus to the dreadnought, tanks, modern artillery, and airpower. The book's great strength is the author's ability to explain even the most complex technologies in simple, graspable terms—before tying them to the evolution of warfare and the global struggle for mastery.”—Geoffrey Wawro, author of Sons of Freedom, A Mad Catastrophe, and The Franco-Prussian War

"Firepower is a fascinating, rip-roaring ride through the development of modern weapons technology and its impact upon war. Lockhart carefully dispels decades of myths and shows why we need to understand how firearms and war machines, from muskets and machine-guns to battleships and bombs, actually worked."—Nick Lloyd, King's College London