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  • Published: 30 November 2011
  • ISBN: 9781448128112
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 272
Categories:

Gunpowder

An Explosive History - from the Alchemists of China to the Battlefields of Europe



The explosive short history of gunpowder and how it changed the world.

For many, gunpowder is associated with Guy Fawkes and the attempt to blow up parliament on 5 November 1605. Fewer people know that the formula for gunpowder was in fact discovered more than 1,000 years ago - in China - and by accident - and was initially a medicine.

This fascinating book tells the story of the huge impact of gunpowder on every state and empire in the world. For 400 years the Chinese kept it to themselves, until a Mongol soldier leaked the secret to the Islamic world, where gunpowder played a crucial role in the rise of the great empires of the Ottomans and the Mughals: the spectacular capture of Constantinople in 1453 was accomplished through new siege tactics, while India was conquered with muskets and artillery mounted on 700 carts held together with ox harnesses.

Even more important was the impact of gunpowder on Europe, where new weapons created new states and helped Europeans go on to dominate the rest of the world. Packed with unexpected and interesting facts, Gunpowder is an exciting, devastating and important story.

  • Published: 30 November 2011
  • ISBN: 9781448128112
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 272
Categories:

About the author

Clive Ponting

Clive Ponting is a Reader in the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Wales, Swansea. His Green History of the World was an international bestseller, and his revisionist biography of Churchill raised a storm of controversy. He is the author of Armageddon, an analysis of the Second World War, The Pimlico History of the Twentieth Century, World History: A New Perspective and Thirteen Days: The Road to the First World War.

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Praise for Gunpowder

[Ponting's account] fills a school boy's heart with joy

The Observer

Gunpowder... performs an admirable job in synthesizing all the available research on the subject

Ronald Hutton, Times Literary Supplement

A concise and effective history

Robert Winder, New Statesman

A fascinating story, told well and simply... This is an insightful book seen from a refreshing, and non-Eurocentric point of view

Alistair Fraser, Sunday Express

A good story and it covers a huge sweep of ground.... Ponting traces its military development and influence as it spread from the Far East into the Islamic world, Europe, the Americas and finally back to China on the receiving end of the naval guns of a brutal and greedy Britain during the 19th-century Opium Wars

David Crane, Spectator

A highly readable account of gunpowder, from its origins in China about 1,200 years ago up to its most famous moment in English history

Graham Parry, Guardian

An eminently readable little history of gunpowder itself, written with customary attention to detail

Dominic Sandbrook, Evening Standard

An entertainingly educative read

A C Grayling, Financial Times

Full of surprises

Peter Lewis, Daily Mail

Ponting has managed to write a history of the entire world

The Guardian