Throwing fire : projectile technology through history
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Bibliographic Information
Throwing fire : projectile technology through history
Cambridge University Press, 2002
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Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Historian Alfred W. Crosby looks at hard, accurate throwing and the manipulation of fire as unique human capabilities. Humans began throwing rocks in prehistory and then progressed to javelins, atlatls, bows and arrows. We learned to make fire by friction and used it to cook, drive game, burn out rivals, and alter landscapes. In historic times we invented catapults, trebuchets, and such flammable liquids as Greek Fire. About 1,000 years ago we invented gunpowder, which accelerated the rise of empires and the advance of European imperialism. In the 20th century, gunpowder weaponry enabled us to wage the most destructive wars of all time, peaking at the end of World War II with the V-2 and atomic bomb. Today, we have turned our projectile talents to space travel which may make it possible for our species to migrate to other bodies of our solar system and even other star systems.
Table of Contents
- Part I. Who, Why, and How: 1. The Pliocene: something new is afoot
- Part II. The First Acceleration, The First Projectiles: 2. The Pliocene and Pleistocene: 'you are what you throw'
- 3. The Pleistocene and Holocene: 'cooking the Earth'
- 4. The Upper Paleolithic: 'humanity and other disasters'
- 5. From weapon craftsmanship to weapon technology
- Part III. The Second Acceleration: Gunpowder: 6. The Chinese elixir
- 7. Gunpowder as centripetal force
- 8. Brown Bess to Big Bertha
- Part IV. The Third Acceleration: Into Extraterrestrial and Subatomic Space: 9. The V-2 and the bomb
- 10. The longest throws
- Part V. The Fourth Acceleration.
by "Nielsen BookData"