What do you think?
New Approaches to Asian History
The Asian Military Revolution: From Gunpowder to the Bomb
Records show that the Chinese invented gunpowder in the 800s. By the 1200s they had unleashed the first weapons of war upon their unsuspecting neighbours. This extraordinarily ambitious book traces the history of that invention and its impact on the surrounding Asian world - Korea, Japan, South East Asia and South Asia - from the ninth through the twentieth century. As the book makes clear, the spread of war and its technology had devastating consequences on the political and cultural fabric of those early societies although each reacted very differently. The book, which is packed with information about military strategy, interregional warfare and the development of armaments, also engages with the major debates and challenges traditional thinking on Europe's contribution to military technology in Asia. Articulate and comprehensive, this book will be a welcome addition to the undergraduate classroom and to all those interested in Asian studies and military history.
202 pages, Paperback
First published January 7, 2008
About the author
Peter A. Lorge
16 books11 followersPeter Lorge is a historian of 10th and 11th century Chinese, with particular interest in Chinese military, political and social history. He is author of Chinese Martial Arts: From Antiquity to the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge University Press, 2012), The Asian Military Revolution: From Gunpowder to the Bomb (Cambridge University Press, 2008), and War, Politics and Society in Early Modern China (Routledge, 2005), which described the development of the Chinese empire in response to the demands of war and internal control. Lorge is editor of Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (The Chinese University Press, 2011). He also edited Warfare in China to 1600 (Ashgate, 2005) in The International Library of Essays on Military History series. In 2007, he established a new book series with Routledge, Asian States and Empires, five of these books have been published. He is currently editing a collected work called Debating War in Chinese History for Brill.
Peter Lorge is one of the founders, and former executive board members, of the Chinese Military History Society. He won the Harriet S. Gilliam Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2004, and has appeared on CNN to discuss Chinese military affairs. In 2007, he attended The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies workshop on teaching National Security at Basin Harbor.
Peter Lorge is one of the founders, and former executive board members, of the Chinese Military History Society. He won the Harriet S. Gilliam Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2004, and has appeared on CNN to discuss Chinese military affairs. In 2007, he attended The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies workshop on teaching National Security at Basin Harbor.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 19, 2021
I really hate it when I give one stars to books, especially non fiction ones. The amount you like something always has to do with expectations and given what I have grown to like and what I dislike, I should have stayed away from this or at the very least stopped reading.
Peter A lorge sets out to tackle the outdated notion that because the West was able to dominate asia for the most of the 19th century until the early 20th, this must imply a cultural superiority most easily shown in Asiatic reluctance to adopt western military technology. Peter A Lorge does this by taking us through the last 500 or in case of China 800 years of political history with a gunpowder detail added to it. The problem is, every chapter is roughly 20 pages.. I mean that is nothing, especially in the chapter on south east asia that stretches from Myanmar to the Philippines we end up with mere paragraphs to talk about hundreds years of complex political history let alone comments on invention/introduction and tactical usage of gunpowder weapons. I don't see how you can end up with anything other then a superficial overview spiced up with saltpeter and smoke or make statements that you don’t have room to actually dissect. For instance, on the Mughals he frequently writes that they integrated cavalry with artillery to facilitate their conquest of India, but how exactly? Give me some battlefield examples. Or he talks about the Jezail rifle as a sort of sniper weapon, ok give me an example? No? Fine then…
What could have worked was either reducing the scope of the book, focusing on one region or even country, double the amount of pages or let go of the whole historical overview and just focus on the gunpowder and or military institutions, tactics and organization. Sometimes he does do that somewhat, like in chapter 6 on the rising Marathas and their defiance of the Mughals. Finally for a few pages we get a look at tactics, geography, strategy and military innovations focused in a specific political context as the book promised to do. But again, with so few pages for everything, it is too little and lost within a book that to me it seems forgot what it was originally meant to be.
When you boil it all down, Peter A lorge’s point is that there is nothing inherently inferior about Asian culture’s and that each dealt with gunpowder in a way that made sense to them from a political and military point of view. That is fine but by the gods why did you not focus on one case, one country or zone? Especially the south east Asia region feels so tacked on. The closest I feel Lorge comes to a somewhat decent analysis is in the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592 where you get three states who had access to gunpowder with three different military outlooks face off oneanother. But even here the book would have benefited from really delving into the tactics, use of battlefield maps, drawings of weapons and armor or looking at the conflict from a strategic military point of view.
Rather then focus his work on gunpowder, Peter A Lorge preferred to use his book to join the talk big history, participate in the big talk on Euro centrism and racism in historiography without having the necessary depth to do so meaningfully. At the same time lorge set out introducing and then forgetting until the conclusions his suggestion of looking at gunpowder, bureaucratic supported standing mass infantry artillery supported armies was a Chinese first and thus we should call out Europe as adopting Chinese military culture, Sure I guess but why did you not give us a whole chapter on that? It all feels so shallow and I won’t remember any of it frankly.
I guess that if you are new to reading academic studies or want to use it as a jumping point for your own more worthwhile in depth research on gunpowder, rifles, cannons and rockets in Asian armies and societies there might be something of use for you here, but for the rest of us; don’t bother
Peter A lorge sets out to tackle the outdated notion that because the West was able to dominate asia for the most of the 19th century until the early 20th, this must imply a cultural superiority most easily shown in Asiatic reluctance to adopt western military technology. Peter A Lorge does this by taking us through the last 500 or in case of China 800 years of political history with a gunpowder detail added to it. The problem is, every chapter is roughly 20 pages.. I mean that is nothing, especially in the chapter on south east asia that stretches from Myanmar to the Philippines we end up with mere paragraphs to talk about hundreds years of complex political history let alone comments on invention/introduction and tactical usage of gunpowder weapons. I don't see how you can end up with anything other then a superficial overview spiced up with saltpeter and smoke or make statements that you don’t have room to actually dissect. For instance, on the Mughals he frequently writes that they integrated cavalry with artillery to facilitate their conquest of India, but how exactly? Give me some battlefield examples. Or he talks about the Jezail rifle as a sort of sniper weapon, ok give me an example? No? Fine then…
What could have worked was either reducing the scope of the book, focusing on one region or even country, double the amount of pages or let go of the whole historical overview and just focus on the gunpowder and or military institutions, tactics and organization. Sometimes he does do that somewhat, like in chapter 6 on the rising Marathas and their defiance of the Mughals. Finally for a few pages we get a look at tactics, geography, strategy and military innovations focused in a specific political context as the book promised to do. But again, with so few pages for everything, it is too little and lost within a book that to me it seems forgot what it was originally meant to be.
When you boil it all down, Peter A lorge’s point is that there is nothing inherently inferior about Asian culture’s and that each dealt with gunpowder in a way that made sense to them from a political and military point of view. That is fine but by the gods why did you not focus on one case, one country or zone? Especially the south east Asia region feels so tacked on. The closest I feel Lorge comes to a somewhat decent analysis is in the Japanese invasion of Korea in 1592 where you get three states who had access to gunpowder with three different military outlooks face off oneanother. But even here the book would have benefited from really delving into the tactics, use of battlefield maps, drawings of weapons and armor or looking at the conflict from a strategic military point of view.
Rather then focus his work on gunpowder, Peter A Lorge preferred to use his book to join the talk big history, participate in the big talk on Euro centrism and racism in historiography without having the necessary depth to do so meaningfully. At the same time lorge set out introducing and then forgetting until the conclusions his suggestion of looking at gunpowder, bureaucratic supported standing mass infantry artillery supported armies was a Chinese first and thus we should call out Europe as adopting Chinese military culture, Sure I guess but why did you not give us a whole chapter on that? It all feels so shallow and I won’t remember any of it frankly.
I guess that if you are new to reading academic studies or want to use it as a jumping point for your own more worthwhile in depth research on gunpowder, rifles, cannons and rockets in Asian armies and societies there might be something of use for you here, but for the rest of us; don’t bother
December 13, 2014
He takes his title from the argued ‘military revolution’ that is meant to have occurred in early modern Europe and triggered social and political changes. But the situation in Asia looks quite different, once you get away from the European template. The qualities that go toward an ‘early modern’ army in Europe, China had centuries beforehand; its inventions don’t lead where this technology in Europe led, either, although an inevitability has been seen – because of what happened in Europe. So there’s a lot to think about, and rethink, from this little book. It’s written in an introductory style, and can be read without prior knowledge. Recommended for any military history buff who wants to extend the picture, or for those who want an exercise in non-Eurocentric history.
I'm going to cheat and append this review, which seems to me a fair assessment: http://www.mindef.gov.sg/imindef/publ...
I'm going to cheat and append this review, which seems to me a fair assessment: http://www.mindef.gov.sg/imindef/publ...
March 21, 2021
I like conclusion of this book, we really need understand that West not create modern world. We always forget that gunpowder and printing its Asian inventions. And for today, i think West = East
February 8, 2012
Picked it up to find out a bit more about Chinese warfare in the 16th and 17th century. Because of this article:
http://the-diplomat.com/china-power/2...
According to Lorge, Chinese firearms, despite their headstart, developed mostly on the track of canon. This was mainly due to Chinese warfare being determined by sieges, rather than field battles.
In the 16th century the Chinese faced the maritime challenge of the Japanese wokou pirates (who were actually also large part Chinese). Once they recognised it as an urgent problem, they dealt with it quite easily, improving their sea and land organisation and tactics.
This experience was to prove useful when the Japanese invaded Korea at the end of the 16th century. The Koreans used Chinese maritime technology and added their turtle ships to decisively defeat the Japanese fleet and cut off supplies to the mainland. On land the Japanese could not match the Chinese canon, although they outclassed the Chinese in small arms and close combat (and Northern Chinese cavalry proved ineffective). The Japanese therefor spread themselves and avoided set piece battles with the Chinese. However, that made them vulnerable to Korean guerillas.
All in all it seems that the Chinese were quite up to par in siege technology, which was most of the conflict with the Dutch in 1661/2. Maybe not so much in battlefield use of small arms.
http://the-diplomat.com/china-power/2...
According to Lorge, Chinese firearms, despite their headstart, developed mostly on the track of canon. This was mainly due to Chinese warfare being determined by sieges, rather than field battles.
In the 16th century the Chinese faced the maritime challenge of the Japanese wokou pirates (who were actually also large part Chinese). Once they recognised it as an urgent problem, they dealt with it quite easily, improving their sea and land organisation and tactics.
This experience was to prove useful when the Japanese invaded Korea at the end of the 16th century. The Koreans used Chinese maritime technology and added their turtle ships to decisively defeat the Japanese fleet and cut off supplies to the mainland. On land the Japanese could not match the Chinese canon, although they outclassed the Chinese in small arms and close combat (and Northern Chinese cavalry proved ineffective). The Japanese therefor spread themselves and avoided set piece battles with the Chinese. However, that made them vulnerable to Korean guerillas.
All in all it seems that the Chinese were quite up to par in siege technology, which was most of the conflict with the Dutch in 1661/2. Maybe not so much in battlefield use of small arms.
Read
January 21, 2016A superb study of how Asia ushered in the age of modern warfare in the wake of China's discovery and utilization of black powder. The author argues that the European practice of gunpowder based warfare and the organizational and institutional changes that sprouted from it actually followed a Chinese model. The author explores major Asian regions, from Japan to the subcontinent to analyze how gunpowder affected the way Asians waged war between the period of the black powder's first appearance on the battlefield and early European contact.
December 1, 2014
This was a really comprehensive book about gunpowder and its origins, but I think that it went along with too many archaic assumptions about Japanese warfare and how they stopped using guns in the Tokugawa period. It was because Tokugawa didn't want the peasants and those powerful warlords who were against him to have the power to rise up, so he banned the run and saved it for his own use.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews