France under Louis XIV (the “Sun King” r.1614-1715) was the most powerful state in Western Europe through the eighteenth century as it sought to maintain and at times, expand its influence over the continent. During Europe’s Dynastic Age of warfare (
The Thirty Years' War began in the German states as Europe’s major powers backed either the northern Protestant Union or the southern Catholic League. As the war progressed, religion receded in importance, replaced by a dynastic struggle between the
At the beginning of the Early Modern era (1500-1800 CE) Italy was divided into a dozen city states, some ruled by old medieval institutions (kingdoms, duchies and the Papal State), while others experimenting with a type of neo-republicanism modeled
Islamic military philosophy drew inspiration from numerous sources, first and foremost the Quran and the Hadith associated with the life and times of Muhammad (c.570-632 CE), but also on Arabic, Persian, North African and Central Asian martial prac
Perhaps the most well-known and influential Japanese military manual in Japan and the West was written by an undefeated samurai at the beginning of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Miyamoto Musashi’s The Book of Five Rings or Go Rin No Sho (1643) is an inst
Focus on the Literature of War: Science of Politics (Arthashastra)
Classical and medieval India produced very few military treaties and tactics and strategy. Unlike in classical Greece and Rome and China, Indian writers were not interested in chr
The most influential military theorist in East Asian history is Sunzi (more commonly Sun Tzu in the Wade-Giles transliteration), author of The Art of War, a title translated as bingfa in Chinese literature. Chinese history records numerous bingshi
Focus on the Literature of War: Julius Caesar’s Gallic War
The Hellenistic era (323-31 BCE) was a dynamic era of military history, an era which inspired and influenced Hellenistic Greek and later Roman historians, whose chronicles of these centurie
Byzantine military manuals, known in medieval Greek as Strategika or Taktika, date back to the early medieval era, however, they build upon lessons learned in the military arts and sciences of the classical world dating back to the Hellenic Greece
In Greece, the invasion of the Mycenaeans in the seventeenth century BCE brought a chariot-borne aristocracy to southeastern Europe. The Mycenaean Greeks were part of the larger Indo-European migrations who spread from their original location in th
