For nearly 600 years, from the battles of the early fourteenth
century to the dropping of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima, firearms
derived from gunpowder and other chemicals defined the frightful
extent of war. The apparatus and materials used in World War I
would have been familiar to our remote ancestors. In this classic
work, first published in 1960, James Riddick Partington provides a
worldwide survey of the evolution of incendiary devices, Greek
fire, and gunpowder.
Greek fire, a composition Partington believes was made of a
distilled petroleum fraction and other ingredients (but not
saltpetre), was most famously used in the sieges of Constantinople
and the Crusades. Partington moves from its antecedents--other
incendiaries used in ancient warfare--to European gunpowder recipe
books ( "The Latin Book of Fire, Bellifortis, " and
"Feuerwerkbuch") and the history of infernal machines, mines,
canon, small arms, and artillery. His book includes chapters on
gunpowder and weapons in Muslim lands, India, and China--including
fire books, the use of gunpowder as a propellant, the artillery of
the Mughal Emperors, and the use of saltpetre in explosives. He
traces the development of gunpowder to eleventh-century China and
cites the first known mention and picture of a firearm in 1326.
"The history of gunpowder and firearms has attracted many
authors with varying interests. The general historian must take
account of major inventions effecting revolutions in the life of
nations. The historian of science is concerned mostly with the
invention of gunpowder. The historian of technology examines the
development in the manufacture of explosives and weapons, and the
way in which gunpowder has found applications in the peaceful arts.
The military historian deals mainly with the use of gunpowder as an
explosive and a propellant... and the development of firearms and
their use in warfare. No recent book in English (or for that matter
in any language) has attempted a concise survey of the
subject."--from the Preface
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