Tonio Andrade, The Gunpowder Age: China, Military Innovation, and the Rise of the West in World History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2016)
Biography: Tonio Andrade is currently an historian at Emory University. He works on global history and the history of China. This is his third book, his previous dealing with how Taiwan became Chinese and China’s first great victory over the west, which happened in the 1600s when the Chinese attacked the Dutch East India Company in Taiwan.
Overview: Responds to the traditional notion that Western culture explains Western global dominance in the Early Modern world and beyond. Presents an East Asian view on the development of military technology. Shows that for the majority of the period between 1350 and 1700 Asia and Europe maintained military parity minus one “little divergence.” He sets out to answer his two central research questions: How did Europe surge to global power and predominance after 1500? And: Why did China fall so far behind by the time of the Great Opium War? Includes some quantifiable analysis to show both divergences.
Thesis: During the Great Qing Peace, the Chinese had finally subdued the Mongols, Turks, and Russians so it faced no serious external threats between 1760 and 1839. As a result, its armies atrophied, and military innovation slowed. Challenge and response shape military innovation.
Scope of Book:
- “Competitive state system” paradigm: Antagonism between European states exerted a selective pressure on European societies, driving them to improve their political, economic, and military structures.
- Many scholars such as Jared Dimond, Wallerstein, David Landes, and Geoffrey Parker attribute this to the rise of the west. This, to Andrade, is a one-sided view of the problem and doesn’t account for what is happening in China contemporaneously with the west. Really, he’s challenging VDH and Niall Ferguson.
- Instead shows that this works for only two periods: 1450-1550 and more significantly 1760-1839.
- Between 1550 and 1700, what he calls the “Age of Parity,” whenever a trained East Asian military force fought a European one, the East Asians won, decisively.
- Second Sino-Portuguese war mark a watershed in military history. Chinese military leaders adopted Portuguese and Frankish guns and deployed them throughout the empire. Drill and discipline returned to China’s military
- In the 17th century, China fought successful wars against the Dutch and the Russians. China did lag behind European powers in naval power and the design of fortresses, but Chinese military leaders gradually adopted the best features of both for their military.
- Great Qing Peace coincides with a period when westerns acquired an image of China as immobile, ancient, stagnant.
- Great Qing Peace also coincides with the rise of total warfare- i.e. French Revolution/Napoleon
- Other scholars hold that the weakness of the Chinese state when those powers divided China in the 19th century was due to a long period of resource-wasting internal wars, but Andrade holds that conflict was but one cause among many, including ethnic tensions and poor governance.
- He also busts the myth that Confucianism kept China unprepared, by showing that when necessary the great Confucian thinkers and innovators turned their minds to military innovation. It was Confucian scholars, Andrade writes, who “studied gunpowder weapons, tested them, experimented with their manufacture, developed tactics and strategies for deploying them, and wrote about all of this in detail.”
- Shows that in initial contact with Europeans, Chinese were outgunned but adjusted. Eventually incorporating arms they captured, studied, and produced.
- Andrade asserts that the musketry volley technique was probably first used in China and not Europe, or Japan, or the Ottoman Empire. Chinese armies, were by and large, better than their European counterparts- superior numbers, better guns, effective logistics, strong leadership, and better drill and cohesion.
Commentary: Very interesting response to Western centric views on the development of gunpowder. It presents a clear and convincing argument about the reasons behind the “Great Divergence.” A nice read, very accessible. 18 chapters broken into four parts bookended by an informative introduction and succinct conclusion.