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Firepower
- How Weapons Shaped Warfare
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 21 hrs and 4 mins
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Publisher's summary
How military technology has transformed the world.
The history of warfare cannot be fully understood without considering the technology of killing. In Firepower, acclaimed historian Paul Lockhart tells the story of the evolution of weaponry and how it transformed not only the conduct of warfare, but also the very structure of power in the West, from the Renaissance to the dawn of the atomic era.
Across this period, improvements in firepower shaped the evolving art of war. For centuries, weaponry had remained simple enough that any state could equip a respectable army. That all changed around 1870, when the cost of investing in increasingly complicated technology soon meant that only a handful of great powers could afford to manufacture advanced weaponry, while other countries fell behind. Going beyond the battlefield, Firepower ultimately reveals how changes in weapons technology reshaped human history.
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“Do new weapons create novel tactics and strategy or simply enhance unchanging doctrines? Paul Lockhart’s exhaustive study of the origins, role, and evolution of gunpowder weapons answers that neither war nor the world itself has ever been the same after the introduction of guns. His tour of the spread of gunpowder weaponry from the fifteenth century to the present is itself a tour de force of facts, analysis, and engaging prose. A riveting history of how five hundred years of gunpowder have changed the way hundreds of millions have lived - and died.” (Victor Davis Hanson, author of The Second World Wars)
“Firepower makes the essential connection between technology and power, from the pike and the arquebus to the dreadnought, tanks, modern artillery, and airpower. The book's great strength is the author's ability to explain even the most complex technologies in simple, graspable terms - before tying them to the evolution of warfare and the global struggle for mastery.” (Geoffrey Wawro, author of Sons of Freedom, A Mad Catastrophe, and The Franco-Prussian War)
"Firepower is a fascinating, rip-roaring ride through the development of modern weapons technology and its impact upon war. Lockhart carefully dispels decades of myths and shows why we need to understand how firearms and war machines, from muskets and machine-guns to battleships and bombs, actually worked." (Nick Lloyd, King's College London)
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An Unengaging Survey that Disappoints
- By Scott Eckert on 08-06-20
By: Evan Mawdsley
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Tin Cans and Greyhounds
- The Destroyers That Won Two World Wars
- By: Clint Johnson
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 9 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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In Tin Cans and Greyhounds, author Clint Johnson brings listeners inside the quarter-inch hulls of destroyers to meet the men who manned the ships' five-inch guns and fought America's wars from inside a "tin can" - risking death by cannon shell, shrapnel, bomb, fire, drowning, exposure, and sharks.
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a lengthy history lessonn
- By SCOTTY on 09-14-19
By: Clint Johnson
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Jutland
- The Unfinished Battle
- By: Nick Jellicoe
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 18 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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More than a century later, historians still argue about this controversial and misunderstood World War I naval battle off the coast of Denmark. It was the 20th century's first engagement of dreadnoughts - and while it left Britain in control of the North Sea, both sides claimed victory and decades of disputes followed. This book not only retells the story of the battle from both a British and German perspective based on the latest research, but also helps clarify the context of Germany's inevitable naval clash and the aftermath after the smoke had cleared.
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Well done
- By William on 03-30-20
By: Nick Jellicoe
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Eagle Against the Sun
- The American War With Japan
- By: Ronald H. Spector
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 23 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Spector reassesses US and Japanese strategy and offers some provocative interpretations. He shows that the dual advance across the Pacific by MacArthur and Nimitz was less a product of strategic calculation and more a pragmatic solution to bureaucratic, doctrinal, and public relations problems facing the Army and Navy. He also argues that Japan made its fatal error not in the Midway campaign but in abandoning its offensive strategy after that defeat and allowing itself to be drawn into a war of attrition.
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OK as an overview, but too little detail
- By Mike From Mesa on 03-21-22
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Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942
- By: Ian W. Toll
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 22 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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On the first Sunday in December 1941, an armada of Japanese warplanes appeared suddenly over Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Six months later, in a sea fight north of the tiny atoll of Midway, four Japanese aircraft carriers were sent into the abyss. Pacific Crucible tells the epic tale of these first searing months of the Pacific war, when the U.S. Navy shook off the worst defeat in American military history and seized the strategic initiative.
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Astonishingly good.
- By Mike From Mesa on 09-01-12
By: Ian W. Toll
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Hubris
- The Tragedy of War in the Twentieth Century
- By: Alistair Horne
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Sir Alistair Horne has been a close observer of war and history for more than 50 years, and in this wise and masterly work he revisits six battles of the past century and examines the strategies, leadership, preparation, and geopolitical goals of aggressors and defenders to reveal the one trait that links them all: hubris.
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I Never Heard W ll Explained this Way!
- By John on 09-01-16
By: Alistair Horne
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Blitzkrieg
- From the Ground Up
- By: Niklas Zetterling
- Narrated by: Roger Clark
- Length: 11 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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The successes of the German Blitzkrieg in 1939-41 were as surprising as they were swift. Allied decision-makers wanted to discover the secret to German success quickly, even though only partial, incomplete information was available to them. The false conclusions drawn became myths about the Blitzkrieg that have lingered for decades.
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An interesting perspective
- By OCreviewer on 09-11-19
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Operation Vengeance
- The Astonishing Aerial Ambush That Changed World War II
- By: Dan Hampton
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1943, the United States military began to plan one of the most dramatic secret missions of World War II. Its code name was Operation Vengeance. Naval Intelligence had intercepted the itinerary of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander in chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet, whose stealth attack on Pearl Harbor precipitated America’s entry into the war. Harvard-educated, Yamamoto was a close confidant of Emperor Hirohito and a brilliant tactician who epitomized Japanese military might.
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I want 1/2 my money back
- By DPM on 08-11-20
By: Dan Hampton
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Normandy '44
- D-Day and the Epic 77-Day Battle for France
- By: James Holland
- Narrated by: John Sackville
- Length: 24 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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D-Day, June 6, 1944, and the 76 days of bitter fighting in Normandy that followed the Allied landing, have become the defining episode of World War II in the west - the object of books, films, television series, and documentaries. Yet as familiar as it is, as James Holland makes clear in his definitive history, many parts of the OVERLORD campaign, as it was known, are still shrouded in myth and assumed knowledge.
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Excellent account of Normandy but be weary...
- By S. H. Moore on 02-22-20
By: James Holland
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The Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific War
- By: Mark E. Stille
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) was the third most powerful navy in the world at the start of World War II and came to dominate the Pacific in the early months of the war. This was a remarkable turnaround for a navy that only began to modernize in 1868. The Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific War details the Japanese ships which fought in the Pacific and examines the principles on which they were designed, how they were armed, when and where they were deployed, and how effective they were in battle.
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Great Technical Reference
- By Dale H. Reeck on 06-09-18
By: Mark E. Stille
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Achtung Panzer!
- By: Heinz Guderian
- Narrated by: Roger Davis
- Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Published in 1937, the result of 15 years of careful study since his days on the German General Staff in the First World War, Achtung Panzer! argues how vital the proper use of tanks and supporting armoured vehicles would be in the conduct of a future war. When that war came, just two years later, he proved it, leading his Panzers with distinction in the Polish, French and Russian campaigns. Panzer warfare had come of age, exactly as he had forecast.
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Genius!
- By Parker Rydbom on 02-07-21
By: Heinz Guderian
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Sand and Steel
- The D-Day Invasion and the Liberation of France
- By: Peter Caddick-Adams
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 37 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Sand and Steel gives us D-Day, arguably the greatest and most consequential military operation of modern times, beginning with the years of painstaking and costly preparation, through to the pitched battles fought along France's northern coast, from Omaha Beach to the Falaise and the push east to Strasbourg.
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Details, details, details
- By Mike From Mesa on 11-11-21
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Great book. Should be read by Secretary of Defense!
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American Gun
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Don't Look Away
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Wonderfully written!
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The Drillmaster of Valley Forge
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What listeners say about Firepower
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- M
- 12-08-22
Very cool
Really liked the performance and the content of the audiobook. Strong recommendation for enthusiasts to listen to.
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- S. H. Moore
- 11-11-21
I love this book. Buying a hard back for my collection.
If you are a student of war and are also fascinated by things. If you enjoy technology. If you enjoy weaponry or gun… get this book. It was so enjoyable. It can be tough to take something inanimate and technical and make it into an interesting story. Yet Lockhart did a MASTERFUL job telling the story of weapons (gunpowder firearms). I also though he did a great job of bringing to light obscure but ultimately import small aspects of forgotten battle and over looked inventors that influenced weapons development. He also manages to put into context how weapons influence state and economic development but also how state and economic Devlopment impact weapons development. Basically he flushed out arms races and why they are import and how they changed the balance of power across the face of the earth. I really could just go on and on, I usually don’t get excited to leave a review, but this book was FANTASTIC. If you are interested in military stuff or gunpowder firearms you will enjoy this book.
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- Belinda
- 07-28-23
technical and specialized
The narrator was wonderful with technical terms from other languages but significantly challenged by reasonable English words such as antecedent and Reformation. It was distracting.
I enjoyed the theme but zoned out during the evolution of the rifle. I learned about training. Tank operation improved when soldiers had played with toy tanks as children.
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- Megan
- 12-27-22
Excellent.
The narration is excellent. The details are astounding and it's explained very very well, and covers the history of warfare, the major revolutions and what made them different. I thoroughly enjoyed the section on early modern Warfare.
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- Kindle Customer
- 11-12-21
I never anticipated the difficult and complicated
Like all these detailed histories they show a much more complicated path than thought possible.
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- Kathy Neal
- 01-25-22
Enjoyable and informative.
The author does an excellent job of outlining the development of small and large arms throughout the centuries, and how militaries evolved in response.
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- jon
- 08-01-24
informative
trying to delve deeper into all the technology mentioned in this book will probably put you on someone's naughty list. worth it.
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-07-22
Great Book
I don’t usually make it through 20 hour books but this one held my interest right through to the end. Highly recommended for military history buffs.
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- Eric
- 06-29-23
The most complete
The most complete “synthesis” of gun history
So many curiosities really pleasantly to listen and learning
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- Anthony Nana Kwamu
- 08-07-22
Amazing
This was an amazing read to say the least. Other than the excellent pace of the narrator, one thing I really enjoyed about this book is the great detail and how the author ties the development of various weapons and systems to historical battles and events. I highly recommend this book.
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