Rulers, Guns, and Money

Rulers, Guns, and Money
Author: Jonathan A. Grant
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2007-03-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780674024427

The explosion of the industrial revolution and the rise of imperialism in the second half of the nineteenth century served to dramatically increase the supply and demand for weapons on a global scale. No longer could arms manufacturers in industrialized nations subsist by supplying their own states' arsenals, causing them to seek markets beyond their own borders. Challenging the traditional view of arms dealers as agents of their own countries, Jonathan Grant asserts that these firms pursued their own economic interests while convincing their homeland governments that weapons sales delivered national prestige and could influence foreign countries. Industrial and banking interests often worked counter to diplomatic interests as arms sales could potentially provide nonindustrial states with the means to resist imperialism or pursue their own imperial ambitions. It was not mere coincidence that the only African country not conquered by Europeans, Ethiopia, purchased weapons from Italy prior to an attempted Italian invasion. From the rise of Remington and Winchester during the American Civil War, to the German firm Krupp's negotiations with the Russian government, to an intense military modernization contest between Chile and Argentina, Grant vividly chronicles how an arms trade led to an all-out arms race, and ultimately to war.

Rulers, Guns, and Money

Rulers, Guns, and Money
Author: Jonathan A. Grant
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2007-03-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674273044

The explosion of the industrial revolution and the rise of imperialism in the second half of the nineteenth century served to dramatically increase the supply and demand for weapons on a global scale. No longer could arms manufacturers in industrialized nations subsist by supplying their own states' arsenals, causing them to seek markets beyond their own borders. Challenging the traditional view of arms dealers as agents of their own countries, Jonathan Grant asserts that these firms pursued their own economic interests while convincing their homeland governments that weapons sales delivered national prestige and could influence foreign countries. Industrial and banking interests often worked counter to diplomatic interests as arms sales could potentially provide nonindustrial states with the means to resist imperialism or pursue their own imperial ambitions. It was not mere coincidence that the only African country not conquered by Europeans, Ethiopia, purchased weapons from Italy prior to an attempted Italian invasion. From the rise of Remington and Winchester during the American Civil War, to the German firm Krupp's negotiations with the Russian government, to an intense military modernization contest between Chile and Argentina, Grant vividly chronicles how an arms trade led to an all-out arms race, and ultimately to war.

Firearms

Firearms
Author: Helen Poole
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2021-11-18
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1000478475

Firearms: Global Perspectives on Consequences, Crime and Control explores the many dimensions of the illicit use of firearms across the globe, including legal, social science, technical and research perspectives on the issue. Employing a global set of case studies, the book introduces students to the core issues related to the trafficking, manufacture, availability and criminal use of firearms, as well as firearms markets, national and international legal frameworks to control firearms, the response of the criminal justice system, the role of civil society in affecting change and how students can get involved through research and action. Firearms will be of great interest to students of Criminology, Criminal Justice, International Law, International Development, Policing, Crime Control and Community Safety.

Guns and Money

Guns and Money
Author: Martin Dougherty
Publisher:
Total Pages: 30
Release: 2004-03-01
Genre:
ISBN: 9780954715304

Arming the World

Arming the World
Author: Geoffrey S. Stewart
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2024-05-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 1493078593

Arming the World tells the story of the American small arms industry from the early 1800’s through the post-Civil War era. Almost from the beginning, the United States produced arms in new, and radically different, ways, relying upon machinery to mass produce guns when others still made them by hand. Leveraging their technological advantage, American gun-makers produced guns with interchangeable parts and perfected new types of small arms, ranging from revolvers to repeating rifles. The federal government’s staggering purchases of arms during the Civil War stimulated the development of fast-firing breech-loading rifles and metal-cased ammunition. When, in 1865, it became clear that every country in the world had re-equip itself with modern weapons, the Americans had an overwhelming head start. Salesmen from Remington, Winchester, Colt and Smith & Wesson --- and from lesser-known firms, too – traveled the world marketing their guns, dominating – or, perhaps, even inventing – the international arms business. American gun-makers sold rifles and side-arms by the millions and cartridges by the billions to great powers, restive colonies and fading empires alike. Adding a new element to the unstable global balance of power, American gun-makers affected the course of history.

The Impoverishment of the African Red Sea Littoral, 1640–1945

The Impoverishment of the African Red Sea Littoral, 1640–1945
Author: Steven Serels
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2018-08-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 3319941658

The African Red Sea Littoral, currently divided between Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Djibouti, is one of the poorest regions in the world. But the pastoralist communities indigenous to this region were not always poor—historically, they had access to a variety of resources that allowed them to prosper in the harsh, arid environment. This access was mediated by a robust moral economy of pastoralism that acted as a social safety net. Steven Serels charts the erosion of this moral economy, a slow-moving process that began during the Little Ice Age mega-drought of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and continued through the devastating famines of the twentieth century. By examining mass sedentarization after the Second World War as merely the latest manifestation of an inter-generational environmental and economic crisis, this book offers an innovative lens for understanding poverty in northeastern Africa.

The Law of Nations and Britain’s Quest for Naval Security

The Law of Nations and Britain’s Quest for Naval Security
Author: Scott Andrew Keefer
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2016-11-13
Genre: History
ISBN: 3319396455

As the centenary of the Treaty of Versailles approaches, this book presents the pre-1914 precursors to the interwar naval arms treaties arising from the peace of 1919, providing a fresh perspective on arms control efforts through an interdisciplinary approach. Interweaving historical investigation with legal analysis, Scott Keefer traces the British role in the development of naval arms control, outlining the pragmatic Foreign Office approaches towards international law. By emphasizing what was possible within the existing legal system rather than attempting to create radically powerful international institutions, statesmen crafted treaties to exploit the unique pace of naval construction. Utilizing previously-overlooked archival resources, this book investigates how the great powers exploited treaties as elements of national security strategies. The result is a fuller analysis of the Hague Peace Conferences, Anglo-German discussions, and lesser known regional agreements from the American Great Lakes to South America, and a richer exploration of pre-1914 diplomacy, providing insights into how a past generation perceived questions of war and defence.

Subversive Seas

Subversive Seas
Author: Kris Alexanderson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2019-04-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1108472028

This revealing portrait of the oceanic Dutch Empire exposes the maritime world as a catalyst for the downfall of European imperialism.

Arming the Sultan

Arming the Sultan
Author: Naci Yorulmaz
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2014-08-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 085773668X

International Arms Trade has always been a powerful and multi-functional constituent of world politics and international diplomacy. Sending military advisors abroad and promoting arms sales, each legitimizing and supporting the other, became indispensable tools of alliance-making starting from the eve of the First World War until today. To the German Empire, as a relative latecomer to imperialistic rivalry in the struggle for colonies around the word in the late 19th century, arms exports performed a decisive service in stimulating and strengthening the German military-based expansionist economic foreign policy and provided effective tools to create new alliances around the globe. Therefore, from the outset, the German armament firms' marketing and sales operations to the global arms market but especially to the Ottoman Empire, under the rule of Sultan Abdülhamid II, were openly and strongly supported by Kaiser Wilhelm II, Bismarck and the other decision-makers in German Foreign Policy. Based on extensive multinational archival research in Germany, Turkey, Britain and the United States, Arming the Sultan explores the decisive impact of arms exports on the formation and stimulation of Germany's expansionist foreign economic policy towards the Ottoman Empire. Making an important contribution to current scholarship on the political economy of the international arms trade, Yorulmaz's innovative book Arming the Sultan reveals that arms exports, specifically under the shadow of personal diplomacy, proved to be an indispensable and integral part of Germany's foreign economic policy during the period leading up to WW1.

The Dirty Secret of Early Modern Capitalism

The Dirty Secret of Early Modern Capitalism
Author: Kees Boterbloem
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2019-10-16
Genre: History
ISBN: 1315531593

This book shows how the Dutch accumulation of great wealth was closely linked to their involvement in warfare. By charting Dutch activity across the globe, it explores Dutch participation in the international arms trade, and in wars both at home and abroad. In doing so, it ponders the issue of how capitalism has often historically thrived best when its practitioners are ruthless and ignore the human cost of their search for riches. This complicates the traditional Marxist understanding of capitalists as middle-class exploiters in arguing for a much greater agency among lower-class Dutch soldiers and sailors in their efforts to benefit from skills that were in high demand.