Weapons of War: A 16-Book Historical Collection

Military Manuals, Antique Arms, Naval Warfare, and Early Visions of Mechanized ConflictBy United States. War Department, Benedict Crowell, Richard Francis Sir Burton, Aaron A. Warford, Carlos De Zafra, John Hewitt, Albert Frederick Calvert, Charles John Ffoulkes, R. Coltman Clephan, Harold L. Peterson, Carl R. Maag, Steve Rohrer, Garrett Putman Serviss, Murray Leinster, John W. Campbell, Karl Spindler

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Weapons of War: A 16-Book Historical Collection surveys the material, technical, and imaginative histories of armed conflict across centuries. Moving from studies of swords, armour, artillery, fortification, and military organization to speculative narratives of future warfare, it juxtaposes documentary precision with antiquarian description, engineering analysis, memoir-like observation, and science-fictional extrapolation. Particularly compelling are its treatments of changing weapons systems and its visionary accounts of mechanized conflict, which reveal how warfare has shaped both technology and cultural imagination. The collection gathers military officials, historians of arms and armour, engineers, antiquarians, journalists, and major popular writers of speculative fiction. Their distinct professional and national perspectives connect the volume to the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century growth of military history, museum-based antiquarian scholarship, imperial-era technical writing, and the emergence of modern science fiction. Together, these voices trace the transition from hand-held weapons and inherited martial traditions to industrialized, bureaucratic, and increasingly automated warfare. Ideal for students of military history, technology, material culture, and speculative literature, this volume offers an unusually broad archive in a single book. Readers will find both factual foundations and imaginative provocations, while the dialogue between historical record and future-oriented fiction encourages critical reflection on weapons as instruments, symbols, and agents of social change.

War & Battle

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Rating★★★★ 4.4 (22)

Includes Goodreads, Amazon

GenreHistory, Literary Classics

Length113 hrs 23 mins

Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices

FormateBook with Audio

Publish dateMar 4, 2025

LanguageEnglish

1Ancient Armour and Weapons in Europe

2Ancient Armour and Weapons in Europe

3&c. (pt. 1)

4&c. (pt. 2)

5&c. (pt. 3)

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6&c. (pt. 4)

7Footnote

8The Book of the Sword

9FOREWORD.

10INTRODUCTION.

11LIST OF AUTHORITIES.

12CHAPTER I. PREAMBLE: ON THE ORIGIN OF WEAPONS.

13CHAPTER II. MAN’S FIRST WEAPONS—THE STONE AND THE STICK. THE EARLIEST AGES OF WEAPONS. THE AGES OF WOOD, OF BONE, AND OF HORN.

14CHAPTER III. THE WEAPONS OF THE AGE OF WOOD: THE BOOMERANG AND THE SWORD OF WOOD; OF STONE, AND OF WOOD AND STONE COMBINED.

15CHAPTER IV. THE PROTO-CHALCITIC OR COPPER AGE OF WEAPONS.

16CHAPTER V. THE SECOND CHALCITIC AGE OF ALLOYS[242]—BRONZE, BRASS, ETC.: THE AXE AND THE SWORD.

17CHAPTER VI. THE PROTO-SIDERIC OR EARLY IRON AGE OF WEAPONS.

18CHAPTER VII. THE SWORD: WHAT IS IT?

19CHAPTER VIII. THE SWORD IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND IN MODERN AFRICA.

20CHAPTER IX. THE SWORD IN KHITA-LAND, PALESTINE AND CANAAN; PHŒNICIA AND CARTHAGE; JEWRY, CYPRUS, TROY, AND ETRURIA.

21CHAPTER X. THE SWORD IN BABYLONIA, ASSYRIA AND PERSIA, AND ANCIENT INDIA.

22CHAPTER XI. THE SWORD IN ANCIENT GREECE: HOMER; HESIOD AND HERODOTUS: MYCENÆ.

23CHAPTER XII. THE SWORD IN ANCIENT ROME; THE LEGION AND THE GLADIATOR.

24CHAPTER XIII. THE SWORD AMONGST THE BARBARIANS (EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE).

25CONCLUSION.

26Footnote

27The Defensive Armour and the Weapons and Engines of War of Mediæval Times, and of the "Renaissance"

28The Defensive Armour and the Weapons and Engines of War of Mediæval Times, and of the "Renaissance"

29PREFACE.

30THE DEFENSIVE ARMOUR AND THE WEAPONS AND ENGINES OF WAR OF MEDIÆVAL TIMES, AND OF THE “RENAISSANCE.”

31PART II. CHAIN-MAIL AND MIXED ARMOUR.

32PART III. THE TRANSITION PERIOD.

33PART IV. HELMS UP TO THE END OF THE TRANSITION PERIOD.

34PART V. PLATE ARMOUR.

35PART VI. A SLIGHT SKETCH OF SOME OF THE MORE IMPORTANT COLLECTIONS ABROAD.

36PART VII. THE TOURNAMENT.

37PART VIII. DETAILS OF DEFENSIVE PLATE ARMOUR.

38PART IX. “GOTHIC” ARMOUR, 1440–1500; AND SOME ARMOUR-SMITHS OF THE PERIOD.

39PART X. MAXIMILIAN ARMOUR, 1500–1540.

40PART XI. ARMOUR WITH LAMBOYS OR BASES.

41PART XII. SOME ARMOUR-SMITHS OF THE FIRST HALF OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

42PART XIII. DEFENSIVE ARMOUR, 1540–1620, AND TO THE END.

43PART XIV. ENRICHED ARMOUR.

44SECTION II. THE WEAPONS AND ENGINES OF WAR.

45PART XVI. THE SWORD.

46PART XVII. THE DAGGER.

47PART XVIII. THE LONGBOW.

48PART XIX. THE CROSSBOW.

49PART XX. MACHINES FOR HURLING OR SHOOTING MISSILES, AND THE WARWOLF.

50PART XXI. MACHINES FOR ATTACKING BELEAGUERED PLACES.

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