Western Warfare, 1775-1882

by Black, Jeremy

• ISBN13: 9780253214720
• ISBN10: 0253214726
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-06-01
• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr

Summary

Drawing on both primary and secondary sources, Western Warfare, 1775-1882 offers students an unrivaled account of civil and international conflicts, integrating both naval and land warfare. It covers military capability as well as conflict; social and political contexts as well as weaponry; and tactics and strategy. In addition to examining major conflicts such as the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War, the American Civil War, and the Wars of German Unification, the book redresses the imbalance of previous treatments by examining the heretofore neglected conflicts in Latin America as well as insurgency and counter-insurgency in Europe. In taking a global perspective, Jeremy Black gives a much more reliable assessment of what constitutes military capability, and thus challenges the technological determinism and linear conceptions of developments in military science that continue to characterize much of military history. As a result, this book reveals a much more complex dynamic, with the author going so far as to question the idea of 'modernity' itself.

Author Biography

Jeremy Black MBE is Professor of History at the University of Exeter and is one of the UK's leading military historians. He is Editor of the journal Archives, and a member of the Councils of the Royal Historical Society and the British Records Association. His recent publications include European Warfare, 1660-1815; The Cambridge Illustrated Atlas of Warfare, 1492-1792; and War and the World, 1450-2000.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Introduction	xi
Western Warfare in its Global Context, 1775-1815	1	(12)
Two Episodes of Modernity? The American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary Wars	13	(24)
Napoleon and His Opponents	37	(22)
Naval Power and Warfare	59	(24)
The Global Context, 1815-82	83	(18)
After Waterloo: Conflict Within the West, 1815-60	101	(32)
Conflict Within the West, 1861-82	133	(30)
Social and Political Contexts	163	(16)
Conclusions: Revisiting Modernity	179	(10)
Notes	189	(12)
Selected Bibliography	201	(4)
Index	205