Tonio Andrade is professor of history at Emory University and the author of Lost Colony: The Untold Story of China’s First Great Victory over the West (Princeton) and How Taiwan Became Chinese.
The Chinese invented gunpowder and began exploring its military uses as early as the 900s, four centuries before the technology passed to the West. But by the early 1800s, China had fallen so far behind the West in gunpowder warfare that it was easily defeated by Britain in the Opium War of 1839–42. What happened? In The Gunpowder Age, Tonio Andrade offers a compelling new answer, opening a fresh perspective on a key question of world history: why did the countries of western Europe surge to global importance starting in the 1500s while China slipped behind?
Historians have long argued that gunpowder weapons helped Europeans establish global hegemony. Yet the inhabitants of what is today China not only invented guns and bombs but also, as Andrade shows, continued to innovate in gunpowder technology through the early 1700s—much longer than previously thought. Why, then, did China become so vulnerable? Andrade argues that one significant reason is that it was out of practice fighting wars, having enjoyed nearly a century of relative peace, since 1760. Indeed, he demonstrates that China—like Europe—was a powerful military innovator, particularly during times of great warfare, such as the violent century starting after the Opium War, when the Chinese once again quickly modernized their forces. Today, China is simply returning to its old position as one of the world’s great military powers.
By showing that China’s military dynamism was deeper, longer lasting, and more quickly recovered than previously understood, The Gunpowder Age challenges long-standing explanations of the so-called Great Divergence between the West and Asia.
歐陽泰的本書有著非常詳實,來源廣泛,可靠的古代火藥證據和推理,還原瞭古代戰鬥的細節。這本書有很多令人感動的地方,比如他站在中西語言的角度,分析詞匯的來源:中國語言中指代槍的燃燒劑和引燃劑,都是火藥(fire medicine),這是一個偏正結構,由“火”字修飾“藥”字,...
評分對比講中國與歐洲的槍炮發展曆史。跟大緻算同類題材的《殺戮與文化》相比,水平更高,戰爭案例更多,中國案例更多,讀起來更有趣,最重要的是,作者的背景更可信,邏輯更嚴謹,證據更多。 作者是海外漢學傢,全書是嚴肅學術著作的風格,大部分的觀點給齣信息來源,對已有的學術...
評分 評分##作者對中西方典籍很是熟悉,引用史料可謂詳實,本書講述瞭從火藥的誕生到黑火藥最後一次大規模運用於戰爭的發展曆程。從火槍火炮在東方的首先運用再到東西方的並駕齊驅階段,一直講到東西分流,19世紀西方軍事技術狂突猛進,把東亞遠遠的甩在身後,百年近代屈辱史講的好,落後...
評分 評分 評分或許初始期望太高,讀完發現提齣問題和試探多於解釋,更適閤做教科書。軍事大分流的說法很有趣,相對平行的軍事技術和作戰模式比較,尤其是幾次歐洲與亞洲勢力交鋒也頗有趣,分流在18世紀中葉(所謂盛清和平期)也恰與彭慕蘭說法對證。不過兩個主要論點——無多國/多政體體係則無戰爭、無戰爭則無威脅、無威脅則無進步(一係列戰爭與國傢形成文獻),盛清一統安靖導緻軍事革新需求消失;科學/技術與科技群體的獨立發展對軍事革新的促進作用(李約瑟等?)——似已經被反復論述過,並無什麼齣色之處。歐洲船隻更先進更抗風浪、歐洲中世紀堡壘城牆較薄但允許火藥武器開火還擊,確乎為重要優勢,且也在無形中促進火藥武器發展和軍隊遠徵與後勤編組進步,然歐陸多國戰爭恰使其非鐵闆一塊,前者僅為少數海權國擁有、後者則並未在遠徵中體現。
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