Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- List of figures and tables
- 1 Thinking about revolutions in warfare
- 2 “As if a new sun had arisen”: England's fourteenth-century RMA
- 3 Forging the Western army in seventeenth-century France
- 4 Mass politics and nationalism as military revolution: The French Revolution and after
- 5 Surviving military revolution: The U.S. Civil War
- 6 The Prusso-German RMA, 1840–1871
- 7 The battlefleet revolution, 1885–1914
- 8 The First World War and the birth of modern warfare
- 9 May 1940: Contingency and fragility of the German RMA
- 10 Conclusion: The future behind us
- Index
10 - Conclusion: The future behind us
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2015
- Frontmatter
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- List of figures and tables
- 1 Thinking about revolutions in warfare
- 2 “As if a new sun had arisen”: England's fourteenth-century RMA
- 3 Forging the Western army in seventeenth-century France
- 4 Mass politics and nationalism as military revolution: The French Revolution and after
- 5 Surviving military revolution: The U.S. Civil War
- 6 The Prusso-German RMA, 1840–1871
- 7 The battlefleet revolution, 1885–1914
- 8 The First World War and the birth of modern warfare
- 9 May 1940: Contingency and fragility of the German RMA
- 10 Conclusion: The future behind us
- Index
Summary
The early Greek imagination envisaged the past and the present as in front of us – we can see them. The future, invisible, is behind us. … Paradoxical though it may sound to the modern ear, this image of our journey through time may be truer to reality than the medieval and modern feeling that we face the future as we make our way forward into it.
The essays in this volume have focused on the transformations in the art of war that have marked the rise of the West. The purpose of this final chapter is entirely different. It is to draw general conclusions about the nature of military revolutions and of revolutions in military affairs, and to explore what that past might suggest about the potential for such revolutions in the future. In view of the claims of the enthusiasts that the United States is riding the crest of an American revolution in military affairs, these are intriguing questions indeed.
The pace of technological and social change and the continuing antagonisms between states make it highly probable that war, military revolutions, and revolutions in military affairs will play a central role in the century that has just begun.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Dynamics of Military Revolution, 1300–2050 , pp. 175 - 194Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001
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