Gunpowder, Explosives and the State: A Technological HistoryBrenda J. Buchanan Routledge, 5 dec 2016 - 449 pagina's Gunpowder studies are still in their infancy despite the long-standing civil and military importance of this explosive since its discovery in China in the mid-ninth century AD. In this second volume by contributors who meet regularly at symposia of the International Committee for the History of Technology (ICOHTEC), the research is again rooted in the investigation of the technology of explosives manufacture, but the fact that the chapters range in scope from the Old World to the New, from sources of raw materials in south-east Asia to the complications of manufacture in the West, shows that the story is more than the simple one of how an intriguing product was made. This volume is the first to develop the implications of the subject, not just in the sense of relating it to changing military technologies, but in that of seeing the securing of gunpowder supplies as fundamental to the power of the state and imperial pretensions.The search for saltpetre, for example, an essential ingredient of gunpowder, became a powerful engine of sea-going European trade from the early seventeenth century. Smaller states like Venice were unable to form these distant connections, and so to sustain a gunpowder army. Stronger states like France and Britain were able to do so, and became even more powerful as the demand for improved explosives fostered national strengths - leading to a development of the sciences, especially chemistry, in the former case, and of manufacturing techniques in the latter. |
Inhoudsopgave
Gunpowder and its Applications in Ancient India | |
A Commodity of Empire | |
Production Storage | |
Its History and Technological Evolution between the Seventeenth | |
Saltpetre at the Intersection of Military and Agricultural Interests in EighteenthCentury Sweden | |
Portuguese Overseas Gunpowder Factories in Particular Those of Goa India and Rio de Janeiro Brazil | |
E I du Ponts Multiple Transfers of French Technology | |
Unorthodox British Technology at the Confederate Gunpowder Works Augusta Georgia 18621865 | |
The Smelting of Iron Cannons and Consumption of Gunpowder in Gipuzkoa in the Sixteenth Century | |
British Munitions for Larger Guns 18601885 | |
Scientific Reasoning and the Empirical Approach at the Time of the European Invention of Smokeless | |
On the Path from Black Powder to ANFO | |
The Transformation of Royal DutchShell during World War I from Oil | |
Overige edities - Alles bekijken
Gunpowder, Explosives and the State: A Technological History Brenda J. Buchanan Gedeeltelijke weergave - 2006 |
Veelvoorkomende woorden en zinsdelen
António army artillery Barcarena barrel Benjamin Robins black powder Brackenbury British bronze Buchanan busta charcoal charge chemical chemist chemistry combustion Comuni CX Comuni early East India Company edge runners eighteenth century engineering Euler European Figure filza fire firearms France French Gipuzkoa grains guncotton gunpowder makers gunpowder manufacture gunpowder weapons guns History Ibid ICOHTEC important incorporation India industry ingredients interior ballistics invention Irénée iron Krupp Leonhard Euler Lisbon London Mendeleev military mixture mortars Mughal muskets muzzle velocity nineteenth century nitrate nitrocellulose nitroglycerine ordnance Paul Vieille plant Pont Portuguese potassium potassium chlorate potassium nitrate poudre pounds powder chamber pressure prismatic powder projectile Rackarock Reisholz Robins's Rôda Rodman Royal Dutch Royal Dutch/Shell Royal Gunpowder Factory saltpetre saltpetre barns saltpetre boilers saltpetre production Science seventeenth century sixteenth century Smokeless Powder sulphur supply Sweden Technology tons Torsebro trade Venice Vieille Waltham Abbey workshop