Boom!

I picked up this book on the sale table at Mount Vernon while on a week-long field trip to Washington, DC, with Offspring #1. (Until you've heard 25 fifth graders singing the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution on a school bus, you really haven't lived.)

It was definitely worth the read. I knew much less than I thought about gunpowder (or "black powder", as we now think of it, since most all munitions for the last 100 years or so have been powered with a chemical substitute often known as "smokeless powder"). For example, I hadn't realized that the basic technology of gunpowder changed little from the 14th century to the 19th century. Sure, improved mechanization techniques increased production volume and made at least small improvements in the safety of the manufacturing process (gunpowder having a tendency to explode during manufacturing), but most of the improvement in firepower and accuracy of firearms came about from improvements to the gun itself, not the powder that powered the projectile.

A little dry in places, but overall the book moves along well, introducing fascinating British, French and American personalities along the way. There's also an interesting political observation: gunpowder contributed to the consolidation of nation states in a significant way because its manufacture, storage and transport were very expensive, and only centralizing states and taxing authority could raise the funds to equip and maintain the armies that determined who would control large portions of land.

I'm starting to really enjoy books of this sort that cover hundreds -- or even thousands -- of years of human history by focusing on particular technology or idea. I think it's because a general history of the world, or even a single continent, over such a span of time would be either ponderously unreadable or textbook boring, but the technology/idea focus over a wide span of time does allow the reader to appreciate the flow of history and not get stuck in any one particular era that may or may not be of lasting interest.