Siege Warfare - The Fortress in the early modern World 1494-1660

    Duffy's purpose in this book is to set the fortress at the centre of the history of the period 1494-1660, the time when gunpowder changed the shape of warfare. He explains and clarifies the elaborate calculations which lie behind fortress construction and details the great sieges, showing how the period was formed, in both its town planning and urban life, by the art of fortress building.

The material is presented in the form of a straightforward narrative beginning in Renaissance Italy, where the architects were the first to devise effective responses to the power of gunpowder artillery, and then passing on to consider the highly accomplished military engineering of the Dutch and Spanish during the Eighty Years War. This struggle ended with the latter two powers exhausted and with France preparing to combine the best of the Italian and Dutch traditions and to carry them forward into a new age. Also examined are the state of the art in Britain, Scandinavia and Muscovy; throughout the far-flung domains of the Turkish Sultan; and in a wider world with distinctive traditions and only just being opened up to Western commerce and culture.

The book is written in English and illustrated with more than 80 photos, drawings, plans and maps. The book is in GOOD shape.