Written by leading experts in their fields, it not only summarises existing scholarship, but also presents new findings and new ideas, casting new light on the art of war, the rise of the state, and European expansion. The chapters in this book provide a comprehensive overview of land and sea warfare across Europe throughout this period of momentous political, religious, technological, intellectual, and military change. These chronological and geographical limits have produced substantial confusion about how the conduct of war changed. However, the military history of this period is usually written from either medieval or early-modern, and either western or eastern European, perspectives.

The period 1350 to 1750 saw major developments in European ­warfare, which not only had a huge impact on the way wars were fought, but are also critical to long-standing controversies about state development, the global ascendancy of the West, and the nature of ‘military revolutions’ past and present.