The First World Empire: Portugal, War and Military Revolution

Description

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the early modern military history of Portugal and its possessions in Africa, the Americas, and Asia from the perspective of the military revolution historiographical debate. The existence of a military revolution in the early modern period has been much debated in international historiography, and this volume fills a significant gap in its relation to the history of Portugal and its overseas empire. It examines different forms of military change in specifically Portuguese case studies but also adopts a global perspective through the analysis of different contexts and episodes in Africa, the Americas, and Asia. Contributors explore whether there is evidence of what could be defined as aspects of a military revolution or whether other explanatory models are needed to account for different forms of military change. In this way, it offers the reader a variety of perspectives that contribute to the debate over the applicability of the military revolution concept to Portugal and its empire during the early modern period. Broken down into four thematic parts and broad in both chronological and geographical scope, the book deepens our understanding of the art of warfare in Portugal and its empire and demonstrates how the military revolution debate can be used to examine military change in a global perspective. This is an essential text for scholars and students of military history, military architecture, global history, Asian history, and the history of Iberian empires. Cover Half Title Series Title Copyright Contents List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgements Notes on contributors Introduction Part 1 Fortifications and military revolution 1 Negotiating early modernity in Azemmour, Morocco: military architecture in transition 2 Early modern fortification: the Portuguese experience and engineer education 3 Military engineers, the military revolution, and the defence of Portugal, 1640–68 Part 2 Sizes of the armies and the rise of the fiscal state 4 Army size, state expenditure, and warfare culture in sixteenth-century Portugal 5 Was there an early modern military revolution in mainland Portugal? 6 “Small government or big government?” Assessing state expansion in the war for colonial Brazil Part 3 Tradition and innovation in warfare 7 Transformation of military technology in Portugal: the impact of the Iberian Union on artillery 8 Portuguese military expeditions to Southeast Asia, 1597–1606 9 Reassessing Portuguese military superiority in Asia in the sixteenth century – the case of land warfare Part 4 Cultural exchange and circulation of military knowledge 10 The Portuguese conquest of Angola in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (1575–1641): a military revolution in West Central Africa? 11 Suppliers, knowledge brokers, and brothers in arms: Portuguese aspects of military innovation in Makassar 12 Military innovation and intrastate warfare: Portuguese artillery and sieges during the Wokou raids of the mid-sixteenth century 13 The military revolution in global history: East Asian perspectives Bibliography Index