Gunpowder Empires
A Milestone Documents E-text
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Gunpowder Empires
https://doi.org/10.3735/9781961844605.book.part.022

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Abstract

Noting their reliance on gunpowder weaponry, both hand-held guns and artillery pieces, the American historian of Islam Marshall G. S. Hodgson referred to the early-modern Islamic empires as “gunpowder empires,” a convention that has been widely used ever since. The adoption of gunpowder meant the displacement of the mounted archers of the steppe as the dominant military force through much of Asia as well as an emphasis on siege warfare involving big cannons and the fortresses built to resist them.

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