List of Tables Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Aresenals of Autocracy 2. Hand-Me-Down Guns: The Balkans and Ethiopia 3. Arms Trade Colonialism: Ethiopia and Djibouti 4. Austro-German Hegemony in Eastern Europe 5. A Tale of Two Arms Races 6. The Dreadnought Races 7. Gunning for Krupp Abbreviations Notes Index
An ambitious and wide-ranging history of the arms export trade over the half century leading up to the First World War. Grant provides a great deal of new information on unfamiliar topics, such as the Argentina-Chile naval race of the 1890s and Ethiopian emperor Menilek's purchase of European rifles. He also offers fresh material on better-known episodes, such as the modernization of Meiji Japan and arms sales to the Balkans. -- David Stevenson, London School of Economics and Political Science An original and illuminating work that connects the global arms business to the spread of imperialism. Grant's archival discoveries are delightfully counterintuitive, with national arsenals selling to even the bitterest enemies of their respective states. He gives a brilliant exposition on the senseless militarization of Latin America in the late nineteenth century, where regimes confessed their folly, yet plowed ahead anyway, driven by pride, patriotism, and graft. -- Geoffrey Wawro, author of The Franco-Prussian War
Jonathan A. Grant is Associate Professor of History, Florida State University.
An ambitious and wide-ranging history of the arms export trade over
the half century leading up to the First World War. Grant provides
a great deal of new information on unfamiliar topics, such as the
Argentina-Chile naval race of the 1890s and Ethiopian emperor
Menilek's purchase of European rifles. He also offers fresh
material on better-known episodes, such as the modernization of
Meiji Japan and arms sales to the Balkans.
*David Stevenson, London School of Economics and Political
Science*
An original and illuminating work that connects the global arms
business to the spread of imperialism. Grant's archival discoveries
are delightfully counterintuitive, with national arsenals selling
to even the bitterest enemies of their respective states. He gives
a brilliant exposition on the senseless militarization of Latin
America in the late nineteenth century, where regimes confessed
their folly, yet plowed ahead anyway, driven by pride, patriotism,
and graft.
*Geoffrey Wawro, author of The Franco-Prussian War*
Although many histories have been written about the international
arms race prior to World War I, few have examined this phenomenon
within the larger context of the 19th century...Impressively
researched...This groundbreaking book will revitalize historical
debate on the arms trade.
*Choice*
Jonathan Grant has written an extensive, well-researched, and
probing account of the companies that built those warships in the
decades before the Great War...His impressive research spanning a
number of nations and various national archives reveals in some
depth the diplomatic struggles that prompted nations to seek arms
and the competition among firms to win contracts. The book will
serve readers interested more narrowly in the subject of arms sales
and, more broadly, in globalization and business history...Rulers,
Guns, and Money should find a place on the shelves of historians of
the period, whether their interests lie in colonialism,
international relations, or business.
*Business History Review*
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