This book challenges the premise that a 'military revolution' prompted
the major European powers to enter into an era of global hegemony during
the early modern period, and suggests that this theory is not supported
if we closely examine contemporary historical events. The conquests of
Mexico and Peru, arguably the two most important colonial acquisitions
by a European power during that era, were accomplished without the
technology or tactics that are usually associated with the 'military
revolution'. On the other hand, Japan, Korea, some Indian states and the
Ottoman Empire implemented military reforms, both tactical and
technological, that are commonly associated with what was considered an
exclusively Western approach to warfare. By comparing case studies of
the Western and the non-Western world, Frank Jacob and Gilmar
Visoni-Alonzo show that the concept of such a 'military revolution' is a
myth perpetuated by a Eurocentric perspective on history.