This attractively illustrated book by a leading historian of early modern Europe explains how the West, so small and so deficient in natural resources in 1500, had by 1800 come to control over one-third of the world.

Geoffrey Parker's argument is in two parts. First the military practice of the West 'at home' in Europe is analysed, with special reference to the role of firearms in the transformation of both offensive and defensive warfare; to the rapid growth in army size; and to the creation of ocean-going warships which fought with long-range guns instead of ramming and boarding. He then argues that these major changes amounted to a 'military revolution' which gave Westerners a decided advantage over the people of other continents: over the Amerindians in the sixteenth century, over most Indonesians in the seventeenth, and over many Indians and Africans in the eighteenth. The book concludes with a brief survey of how the industrial revolution caused a second series of military changes which allowed the West to dominate almost the entire world by 1914.