The “fascinating” (Wall Street Journal) story of 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 weaponryand how ittransformednot onlythe conduct of warfarebut also the very structure of powerin the West,from the Renaissance to the dawn of the atomic era. Across this period, improvementsinfirepowershapedtheevolving art of war.Forcenturies, weaponryhadremained simple enough that any state could equip a respectable army.That all changed around 1870,whenthe cost of investing in increasingly complicated technologysoonmeantthatonly a handful of great powers could afford to manufactureadvancedweaponry,while other countries fell behind.¿Going beyond the battlefield,Firepowerultimatelyrevealshowchanges inweapons technologyreshapedhuman history.