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War Made New: Weapons, Warriors, and the Making of the Modern World
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$ 14.04
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$ 18.00 |
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| Item Number |
404659 |
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Item Description...
Overview
Examines how technological innovation shaped the rise and fall of empires during four historical periods, from the Gunpowder Age to the Industrial Revolution, and continues to play a pivotal role in modern warfare.
Publishers Description
A monumental, groundbreaking work, now in paperback, that shows how technological and strategic revolutions have transformed the battlefield
Combining gripping narrative history with wide-ranging analysis, War Made New focuses on four A"revolutionsA" in military affairs and describes how inventions ranging from gunpowder to GPS-guided air strikes have remade the field of battleA-and shaped the rise and fall of empires.
War Made New begins with the Gunpowder Revolution and explains warfareA's evolution from ritualistic, drawn-out engagements to much deadlier events, precipitating the rise of the modern nation-state. He next explores the triumph of steel and steam during the Industrial Revolution, showing how it powered the spread of European colonial empires. Moving into the twentieth century and the Second Industrial Revolution, Boot examines three critical clashes of World War II to illustrate how new technology such as the tank, radio, and airplane ushered in terrifying new forms of warfare and the rise of centralized, and even totalitarian, world powers. Finally, Boot focuses on the Gulf War, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the Iraq WarA-arguing that even as cutting-edge technologies have made America the greatest military power in world history, advanced communications systems have allowed decentralized, A"irregularA" forces to become an increasingly significant threat. |
Item Specifications...
Pages 624
Dimensions: Length: 1.5" Width: 6" Height: 9.25"
Weight: 1.6 lbs.
Binding Softcover
Release Date Aug 16, 2007
ISBN 1592403158
EAN 9781592403158
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Availability 8 units.
Availability accurate as of May 30, 2012 04:16.
Usually ships within one to two business days from Momence, IL.
Orders shipping to an address other than a confirmed Credit Card / Paypal Billing address may incur and additional processing delay.
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | Well-written but superficial May 14, 2008 |
| Max Boot's massive study of the evolution of military technology and its impact upon military history in the last four centuries is very well-written but ultimately fails as history. It fails for the simple reason that the author is closely associated with the "neo-conservative" point of view that has had such a disastrous impact on American foreign policy during the last eight years. Let us be clear here, I do not criticize the book because I am part of that massive army of critics of the Irag War and occupation, I do so because history should be an exercise in objectivity. Boot's analysis all too often is a superficial restatement (without the necessary references) of the work of earlier writers like Theodore Ropp, Martin van Creveld, Hans Delbrueck as other reviewers have rightly pointed out. This book reads like a well-written dissertation by a bright, but ideologically conservative graduate student. It has all the attractions and shortcomings of popular history: sweeping generalizations, questionable analogies, and superficial analysis that tends to ignore the larger context of the question. As a professor who has taught military history on the university level for over twenty years, I would not recommend this book to my students. My recommendation for anyone looking for a one volume survey of war from the 16th century to the Cold War would be Theodore Ropp's wonderful War in the Modern World. For readers interested in reading superior military history written from a more sophisticated "neo-con" perspective, I would recommend anything by Victor Davis Hanson. | | |  | A Great Introduction to Military History Feb 25, 2008 |
After taking a foreign policy class, I realized that my knowledge of military history is woefully lacking. While this book is not designed to be an introduction to military history, Boot is a lucid writer who avoids confusing jargon, which made the book an excellent primer for me.
For me, the best part about War Made New was that it managed to explain why military victories have such a great effect on world history. In most history classes I've ever taken, victories are explained by looking at economics and cultures. However, these arguements do a poor job explaining why, for example, France and Britain fell to the Nazis in 1940. Boot's explaination (that Germany, while poorer and weaker had a better military organization) was much more satisfying. Boot manages to work similar miracles with his explanation of the Spanish Armada and the Russo-Japanese War.
Boot's coverage of modern military history is certainly more controversial, but as a novice, I found it extremly interesting - Boot explained, in laymens terms, why it is that America has the best military in the world. Indeed, after reading Boot's book, I was so fascinated by the administrative set-up of the US Military, that I started telling my Syrian roommate about what components of military administration our college should adapt. Needless to say, she was not impressed...
Most of these postings seem to have been made by connoisseurs of military strategy and technique - but as a novice, I found this book extremely enlightening.
| | |  | Almost a Wonderful Narrative History Jan 30, 2008 |
This book provides a clear narrative of the role technology has played in warfare over the past 500 years through twelve or so case studies. Although it contains a fair amount of detail, such as how the Prussian needle gun worked, it is incredibly easy to read. These considerations alone make me happy to recommend the book to anyone interested in military history regardless of their familiarity with the subject.
That said, I feel required to offer a warning to those who would pick up this book: Boot does not give an entirely fair analysis of the case studies from 1944 to the present. In the respective chapters (about one quarter of the book), Boot overemphasizes the role the United States played in creating and implementing new technologies in warfare, fails to give adequate credit to the tactics and technologies that opponents of the United States' created and implemented (such as the use of IEDs in Iraq), and legitimizes recent and current American foreign policy through narratives of the United States' military victories and the development of its advanced weapons - a case he does not make for any of the other countries and powers that comprise the first 450 years of his history. These biases are inconsistent with the general flow of the book and serve only as arguments for Boot's views, namely that "might makes right" and American preponderance is justified and good regardless of how it is used.
I recall the first example of this arising in a case study about the long range bomber: the tale of the B-29 and the firebombing of Tokyo. Boot argues that this weapon was revolutionary throughout WWII for strategic and terror bombing, yet most of the examples he gives occurred before the 1944 deployment of the bomber and are from the European theater rather than the Pacific - where the B-29 was deployed. Boot eventually described the role the B-29 played in firebombing Tokyo; however, he fails to mention the bomber was not revolutionary in this respect because firebombing was a tactic used in Europe as well as the Pacific and by bombers other than the B-29. In addition to this, the long range bomber could not have significantly impacted what he terms the "second industrial revolution" (1917-1945) because it was deployed so late in the war.
I have concluded the reason Boot chose to include such a ridiculous argument was to counter the preceding chapter concerning the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The firebombing case study served only to show we hit the Japanese harder than they hit us and that they had it coming. Such a message was entirely out of place in a book about changes in warfare and military technology. Boot should have presented the argument in a way that would not have compromised a truly excellent text, such as by writing it in another book.
Even with these flaws, War Made New is a fun and engaging read all things considered. I would recommend it to those interested in military history, unless they are not interested in poorly formed neoconservative arguments. Then I would only recommend the first three quarters.
| | | | A different slant on modern history Nov 8, 2007 |
I found War Made New to be an unusual combination of a wealth of historical information and an easy read.
Did you know that --
Breech-loading rifles that had proved their enormous value in wars in Europe were available at the time of the Civil War but the U.S. Army's head of logistics refused to provide them to the infantry?
The masterful use of technology was at the heart of Prussia's expansion in the latter half of the 19th century?
From the 19th century onward Prussian/German soldiers had wider latitude in how to carry out their missions than did the soldiers of all other nations' armies?
After the Battle of Midway the Japanese Navy was hampered by a lack of competent airplane pilots due in large part to an early decision by Japanese admirals about pilot training?
I didn't until I read War Made New.
| | | | Not just history, but analysis and insight Sep 3, 2007 |
| Max manages to well capture the balance between seeing the forest at the same time as the trees. Further, by extrapolation, he offers insight as to what the forest will look like in the future. I thought the book was excellent, and should be good reading for any military officer. I am a retired military officer, and have seen all the changes from the middle of the Cold War to Gulf War II. It's a completely different ball game, and Max covers it well. {To the detractors; all books have factual errors. Look to the forest, not the trees, or you miss the point of the book.) | | | Write your own review about War Made New: Weapons, Warriors, and the Making of the Modern World
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