War in the Non-European World
Title | War in the Non-European World |
Publication Type | Book Chapter |
Year of Publication | 2006 |
Authors | Vandervort, Bruce, Matthew Hughes, and William J. Philpott |
Book Title | Palgrave Advances in Modern Military History |
Pagination | 195-213 |
Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan |
City | Basingtoke, UK |
Abstract | It all began with Cortés. The victory of Hernán Cortés and his handful of Spanish conquistadors over the glittering empire of the Aztecs in Mexico in 1521, followed a little more than a decade later by the overthrow at the hands of an even smaller band of Spanish adventurers of the equally dazzling empire of the Incas in Peru, gave rise to one of history’s most enduring legends: the legend of the world-beating character of the ‘Western way of war’. It was, or so the legend has it, the superior technology, disciplined professionalism and assertive quest for decisive battle of Western armies like that of early modern Spain that secured victory — for Cortés and Pizarro and for the centuries-long parade of imperial soldiers who followed in their footsteps and succeeded in bringing most of the rest of the world under European (and European American) domination.[Author] |
URL | https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230625372_11 |