发表于2025-04-29
The Gunpowder Age pdf epub mobi txt 电子书 下载
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.
##中国人发明了火药,但只是用来庆祝新年和节日,西方人受到启发,发明了火炮,进而展开对异域的殖民扩张——类似的看法或陈见,不仅见诸以鲁迅代表的“新文化运动”主将笔下,也在不少国内外学者当中蔓延,以至于成为了某种集体无意识;暂且不论前者与后者的不同,特别是其产生...
评分 评分##在比较史学的研究领域,中国与西方的“大分流”(great divergence)一直都是热门话题。为什么在近代西方在公元 1500 年以后迅速发展出成熟的工业文明,而同时的中国却呈现明显的“停滞”?自中国与西方发生“大分流”现象那一刻起,世界各国从事比较研究的学者们就在坚持不懈...
评分##作者做了大量功课(引用丰富资料)来研究火炮时代以中国为代表的东亚(也包括日本和朝鲜)与欧洲在使用火炮方面的优劣。 中国在宋朝即有使用火器的记载,元末明初中国率先进入火药时代。由于中国城墙普遍高大坚固,火器难以撼动,因此火器偏重小型化和人员杀伤,而欧洲城墙相对...
评分 评分 评分 评分The Gunpowder Age pdf epub mobi txt 电子书 下载