Military Technology and World History: A Reconnaissance

MILITARY INSTITUTIONS, like other social institutions, organize major areas of values, attitudes, and interests in the service of critical social needs. Unlike most social institutions, however, military institutions appear only in state or near-state societies. They are closely linked with the origin of civilization, may in fact be a necessary if not sufficient cause for the transition to state organization and civilized life. Whatever their causal role, military institutions lie very close to the core of civilizations as they have developed, both the armature around which complex societies have shaped themselves and the model they have often followed in organizing social action.1 Institutions of such importance deserve a good deal more study than they have usually received. Relationships between military institutions and technological change have also regularly made history. Understanding technological change requires paying attention to interactions between technology and social institutions, because social change impacts technology no less than technological change impacts society. And just as military institutions are but varieties of social institutions, so too military-technological change is but a variety of social change. Technological innovation of almost every kind has historically answered more to military purpose than commonly allowed. This is not simply a matter of technological change fostered by