Gunpowder, explosives and the state

Brenda J. Buchanan , ed ., Gunpowder, explosives and the state: a technological history ( Aldershot : Ashgate , 2006 . Pp . xxiii + 425. 80 illus. 8 tabs . ISBN 0754652599 Hbk. £55/$99.95 ) Gunpowder and explosives have played a major role in world history, yet strangely their development, behaviour, use, and production have been neglected by historians. Based on 20 papers presented at biannual symposia of the International Commission of the History of Technology from 1996 until 2002, this volume aims to make good the deficiency. The emphasis is on black powder, the mechanical mixture of saltpetre, charcoal, and sulphur that was the sole propellant for firearms and explosives for blasting, from its appearance in eleventh-century China until late in the nineteenth century. This emphasis—16 of the 20 chapters address developments in the black powder era—is entirely appropriate, for black powder influenced war profoundly, and to a lesser extent mining and construction, for over half a millennium as opposed to less than a century and a half for the chemical propellants and explosives that replaced it. Moreover, the origins, thermo-chemical behaviour, manufacture, and historical impact of black power are far less well understood than those of its successors. Following Buchanan's introduction, a useful discussion of the intersection between gunpowder manufacture and the economic and military needs of state, the chapters are presented in five sections. The first, ‘Modern perceptions and ancient knowledge’, contains an overview of the evolution of black powder manufacturing methods by Robert A. Howard; Buchanan's penetrating analysis of the importance of supplies of saltpetre—black powder's critical ingredient—to the British empire; and two essays on the early development and use of black powder on the Indian subcontinent. Iqtidar Alam Khan's ‘The Indian response to firearms, 1300–1700’ is particularly valuable for addressing parallel Ottoman and western European developments. The second section, ‘The production of saltpetre and gunpowder in Europe’, contains four chapters addressing developments in Venice, Portugal, and Sweden (two chapters). Walter Panciera's chapter on the production, storage, and use of gunpowder in Venice during the second half of the sixteenth century illuminates the intersection between military necessity and technological adaptation in the face of economic constraints. The third section, ‘The overseas transfer of technology from Europe’, contains four chapters dealing, respectively, with black powder production in Portugal's overseas possessions; gunpowder production in Egypt, first under Napoleon and then under Muhammad Ali; the transfer of French black powder manufacturing methods to the United States by Eleuthére Irénée du Pont in the early 1800s; and powder production in the Confederacy during the American Civil War. The fourth section, ‘Military technicalities’, contains three gems. Kelly DeVries and Robert Smith's essay on the early breech-loading cannon with removable powder chambers, though largely descriptive, is encyclopaedic and should remain the final word on the subject for many years. Brett D. Steele's discussion of mathematician Leonard Euler's work during the Enlightenment makes important original contributions to our understanding of the early interactions among mathematical theory and engineering and military practice. Seymour Mauskopf's beautifully—and usefully—illustrated discussion of the development in Britain of propellants for large ordnance during the final days of black powder tells us why and how increasingly sophisticated propellants were made—the determination of optimum grain size and geometry were particularly vexing issues—but falls tantalizingly short of telling us how the stuff actually worked inside the gun. The final section, ‘Modern developments’ has four chapters. René Amiable's ‘Scientific reasoning and the empirical approach at the time of the European invention of smokeless powder’ provides a critical comparison of two fundamentally different—and equally successful—development strategies, nicely complementing Richard E. Rice's ‘Smokeless powder: scientific and institutional contexts at the end of the nineteenth century’. These two essays are exceptionally well-informed scientifically and in combination provide the best intellectual, technical, and institutional history of the early development of smokeless propellants of which I am aware. Ian Rae and James H. Whitehead address the development late in the nineteenth century of blasting agents that were safer and easier to use than black powder, but which shared its ‘heaving’ action, better suited for moving large quantities of earth and rock than dynamite's shattering effect, and show that the evolution from black powder to dynamite to the ammonium nitrate-fuel oil agents used today was more complex than generally supposed. Finally, in tracing the Royal Dutch/Shell Oil Company's foray into the production of explosives during the First World War, Ernst Homburg presents a fascinating case study of early multinational corporate flexibility. As is generally the case with collections of essays, the contributions vary in interest and relevance. Those at the top end make significant contributions to the history of technology, economic history, the history of ideas, and business history; at the bottom, there are brushes with antiquarianism. The writing varies from clear to excellent and the copy-editing is uniformly good. The editor is to be commended for enforcing concision and the publisher for the quality of production

Archaeology · China · Gunpowder · Power (physics) · State (computer science) · Diverse Historical and Scientific Studies · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · History of Science and Medicine