The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History

Excellent overview of China's history & the invention & development of gunpowder. Relates it to European military development & its adoption of firearms. Much more of a researched history text vs. popular history.

Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation and the Rise of the West in World History, is the second book I've read by Tonio Andrade that provides a comparative view of Chinese and European military history. The first book, Lost Colony, analyzes a 17th century war fought between the Dutch and Ming loyalists over the island of Taiwan. In Gunpowder Age, the author pulls back, adopting a broader approach to Chinese military developments beginning with the introduction of gunpowder. The author's thesis is intriguing. He postulates that the reason China lagged behind the West militarily was not because of a conservative Confucian philosophy that stifled military innovation. On the contrary, Andrade argues that China, pre and post gunpowder period, had not only embraced new military technology, but studied and implemented methods that maximized the uses of their various weapons systems.In fact, according to the author, some of the most ardent proponents of cutting edge weapons were part of the very Confucian class historians blame for China's later stagnation. Even when Europeans began producing better muskets and artillery than Chinese models, the latter enthusiastically adopted those weapons when they were reintroduced to China. It was this exchange of gunpowder-based weapons from east to west and back to the east that kept China on par with Europe militarily into the 18th century.Andradre does highlight key European military advantages during this period: ships and fortresses. While Asian forces fought and often defeated Western forces in land engagements, Europeans held sway on the high seas with their sturdy ships equipped with powerful cannons. On land, despite Asian victories over Western forces, Asians were unable to breach new model fortress designs created by Europeans. On the other hand, China continued to adopt new weapons and keep pace with Western developments even during its humiliation at the hands of European powers and Japan in the 19th century. A shipyard in China during the last decade of that century churned out steam powered ships as advanced as any contemporary European or Japanese vessels. While mismanagement, factionalism, corruption, and lack of a strong central authority share blame for China's military weakness, Andrade adds another, yet very crucial factor...perhaps the most crucial of all: lack of warfare.China's history is exceedingly bloody. Over its centuries of existence, China was racked with destructive wars often far exceeding in scale the violence afflicting Europe. But during the 18th and 19th centuries, China's pace of warfare slowed, while Europe's pace picked up. The Manchu Dynasty's wars of conquest pacified huge swathes of territory once ruled by menacing nomads. These successful military campaigns imposed a period of peace. This overall peace eroded China's military edge. Without constant wars, there was no need to invent new weapons and lesser need to innovate. Thus, China's parity lapsed, leaving it exposed to the newly industrialized might of Western predation.Andrade takes this thesis and brings it to light in a brilliant elaboration that consigns China's weakness less to a constricting ideology and more to practical concerns. His explanation shatters long held myths about early modern Chinese military capability and its relation to the West.

The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History by Tonio Andrade is a Sinophile historian's view of why China suffered the 100 "Years of Humiliation." It deals heavily with military history and says China was superior to Europe until the 1500s, then on par with Europe until the Long Peace imposed by the Qing from 1760-1839 let China fall behind militarily, although by less than we think. Chinese military innovation in different dynasties is well-covered and he's good if a bit obscure on the Qing extermination of their nomad rivals, which brought about the Long Peace. He has lots of detail, much from the Chinese side, on obscure battles like Zeelandia and Albazin that have long interested me but about which I could never find details. I have problems with the book downplaying cultural factors. Some of Andrade's stuff strikes me as special pleading. If the Chinese had corned gunpowder before Europeans and better cannons than Europeans why did they import 'Frankish cannon' at all? I also have trouble with the concept that it took China less than 70 years to lose all kinds of skills. The great advances in the the19th century were centred in an England that was just as much at peace as China, albeit 1815-1913. Moreover, although he concedes in a postscript that 'scientific inquiry' exploded in Europe the way it didn't in China in the 19th century, he doesn't credit Joseph Needham with the idea, even though Needham wrote long ago about Europe's 'scientific method' being a major difference between the cultures. Caveats aside, the book is another step towards that eventual consensus book on the Weberian question as it applied to the military success of the West over the East.

It is difficult to find good scholarly research on gunpowder, and there seem to be many myths associated with both the substance and the devices exploiting it. The Gunpowder Age is an excellent, well research book that fills this gap. It is the best overarching history of guns and why they took particular forms that I have read so far. Gunpowder itself is often misunderstood, and this work explains how the substance has changed in formula and use over time. As a Sinophile, I was particularly interested in the detailed analysis of 19th century China's failings in military technology at a time that European and Asian countries were making rapid advances. One of the most interesting books I have read in a long time, and one that I have given as a gift to some of my friends.

The Gunpowder age: The author approaches the age old question of the great divergence, why the west took the lead over Asia. The development of gunpowder weapons is the main theme, but fortifications, ship design and the impact of western science are part of the evidence presented. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Finding it in my opinion balanced and in depth. As researchers have looked into the differences between China and Europe we find less and less differences and this book presents the nuances involved. Highly recommended and this is an important part of the explanation of why the divergence occurred.

A very clearly written book, well grounded in the available scholarship. The author gives a very informed and balanced view of the interactions between, and development paths of, gunpowder warfare in Europe and East Asia, particularly China. Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in global history or military history.

A interesting book, but the narrative occasionally turns into desperate cherrypicking when it comes to proving the point that China had it all... I think the concept of Chinese potential and excellence may have needed this kind over-empahsis some 20 years ago when the concept of lasting Confucian atrophy was more widely held.

Andrade provides detailed information and proof through case studies of wars fought between China and Europeans in the 17th century of the kind of technology that the Ming/Qing Chinese had compared to their Euro counter parts. As well he has provided a compelling reason why he thinks that a great divide happened between China and the countries of Europe afterwards. Giving a great comparison of the forces of the Opium wars as well, something that is rather hard to find, especially in English.

Written in straightforward language but possesssing scholarly depth and ambition, this book is a significant contribution to the academic debate on why China had by the middle of the 19th century fallen far behind the West in terms of warfighting capability.It focuses on how gunpowder weapons and their use developed in both China and the West since the invention of gunpowder in China in the early 10th century CE and tries successfully to explain these developements. The book makes a compelling case that scientific advances in the West which revolutionized gunpowder technology and a massive deterioration of Chinese military readiness contributed to the Great Divergence which was contrary to conventional western wisdom rather not the result of China closing itself off from the rest of the world or the Chinese elite cultivating a disdainful ignorance of practical matters.

A full and well researched account of why China fell behind the west militarily - for a time.