The Medieval Military Revolution: State, Society and Military Change in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

by Andrew Ayton (Editor), J.L. Price (Editor)

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.

Genres: History, Medieval, War, Nonfiction, Military Fiction

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Hull.

Reviews

[Stephen Harrison · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of widely disparate essays with the theme "uniting" theme being medieval military changes. The essays included issues of fortifications and the philosophies of war. The only one I think I would use in my teaching is the one on the Dutch Republic, which the author says went against the grain of increased centralization of power. The Dutch Republic was essentially created to wage war, which it did very well, but it was otherwise almost a confederation with Holland playing the leading role. The author discusses that it was able to overcome this mainly by creating a centralized apparatus that only dealt with the military. It worked well enough until the Republic racked up so much debt that it became unsustainable.

This book is fine for a specialist (which I'm not), but not great for a casual reader.