Amphibious Warfare 1000-1700 - (History) by David J B Trim & Mark C Fissel (Paperback)

About the Book

This anthology explains how Europeans used amphibious warfare to exert military and economic power in the Mediterranean, North and Baltic Seas, and the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, and the adjacent coasts; and how war, commerce and the growth of the European State system sustained one another.

Book Synopsis

This volume reconceptualizes amphibious warfare and also fills an important gap in its historiography, examining how it was conceived, practised and employed, from the Crusades, through the first wave of European exploration and colonization, the Price Revolution and the European wars of religion, up to the early Industrial Revolution and the beginnings of a new wave of imperialism. Essays examine issues related to strategy, operational art, tactics, logistics and military technology, but also consider commerce and culture. They reveal that amphibious warfare was often waged for economic reasons and was the quintessential warfare of European imperialism, for sea power was required to deliver and sustain land power. The volume is lavishly illustrated with 30 plates and twelve maps.
Contributors: Matthew Bennett; Louis Sicking; Malyn Newitt; Jan Glete; John F. Guilmartin; R. B. Wernham; Mark Charles Fissel; Guy Rowlands; John Stapleton; David J.B. Trim.

Originally published in hardcover

Review Quotes

"The present book offers a very refreshing methodological approach to the subject of amphibious warfare, and has a good index and representative illustrations. Overall this is a very interesting book for researchers in early modern sea warfare (with a small introduction about the Middle Ages)." - Jose Manuel Rodriguez Garcia, in: Medieval Warfare Book Reviews
"An "important collection"; the introduction is "a model of clarity on the historiography, definition and form of amphibious warfare"; essays "convincingly demonstrate the myopic focus of current historiography upon the modern age", and "insightfully advance a multidisciplinary agenda". The "volume is certainly a necessary and welcome addition to the history of European warfare in general and amphibious combat in particular. Students and scholars will not only derive benefit from the individual essays but also from the editors conceptualization of, and conclusions about, amphibious warfare, which includes a weighty future research agenda." - in: Journal of Military History
"... aims to demonstrate the centrality of amphibious operations to the conduct of warfare in the medieval and early modern periods. It succeeds admirably [...] a detailed introduction by the editors, which establishes the scope of the volume [...] Indeed, the contextualisation of amphibious and riverine warfare in the introduction serves generally as a valuable comparative framework for all such operations over time. The editors also provide an equally thoughtful conclusion. [...] the 30 black and white illustrations make it an attractive production [...] that the illustrations are culled from archives and libraries in Britain, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden testifies in itself to the range of the volume and its contributors. [...] This is an important contribution to the historiography of the mediaeval and early modern military worlds with wider implications for military and naval historiography generally." - Ian F.W. Beckett, in: Mars & Clio 18 (Spring 2007)

About the Author

D.J.B. Trim, Ph.D. (2003), University of London, is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. His publications include The Chivalric Ethos and the Development of Military Professionalism (2003) and Cross, Crown and Community: Religion, Government and Culture in Early-Modern England, 1400-1800 (2004).

Mark Charles Fissel, Ph.D. (1983), University of California, Berkeley, is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He is the author of English Warfare 1511-1642 (2001), The Bishops' Wars: Charles I's Campaigns against Scotland (1994), and War and Government in Britain 1598-1650 (1991).