In a study that extends well beyond military history, David B. Ralston documents the ways in which five different countries Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, China, and Japan refashioned their armed forces along European lines during the three centuries after 1600. The appropriation of Western military institutions in countries outside of Europe was, Ralston argues, the major force driving these countries to adopt European administrative, economic, and cultural modes.
Following the same format in his discussion of each country, Ralston makes this central theme in world history easily...