NEWS & EVENTS

History Professor Frederick Schneid's Latest Book Published (November 2005). Dr. Schneid and four other distinguished military historians have published Fighting Techniques of the Early Modern World (St. Martins Press, 2006). The book examines the combat techniques of soldiers in Europe and America from 1500-1763, exploring the consequences of improved technology and gunpowder on the battlefield. Infantry, cavalry, generalship, siege and naval warfare are all discussed within the framework of the military revolution.

Schneid's chapter," Command and Control,” analyzes how the  evolving nature of war, the composition of armies, technological advances, increasing state revenues, larger populations, and the formation of the modern state all brought tremendous changes to the nature of generalship during the early modern era. Schneid concludes that the military revolution gave birth to powerful military bureaucracies, established a professional officer corps, and redefined the European nobility as a service class. As is the case with each of the book's sections, Schneid's analysis is supplemented by specially commissioned artwork and cartography. Fighting Techniques of the Early Modern World is currently available in Europe, and will be released in the United States in July 2006. A Swedish translation will be released in the near future.