Warfare and state building in the early modern Maghrib. (Volumes I and II)
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
Georgetown University
Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.
1989
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item
652-652 p.
DISSERTATION (THESIS) NOTE
Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree
Ph.D.
Body granting the degree
Georgetown University
Text preceding or following the note
1989
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
The title, "The Hundred Years War for Morocco, 1465-1580", encapsulates our themes, structure, and historical parameters. This dissertation is about warfare, violence control organizations, and changing technologies of force in early modern Morocco. It is thus a military history, but one in which military trends and events serve political and social analysis extended over time--an attempt at "New" military history that recognizes military change is also social change. In this context, the evolution of gunpowder armies, navies, the practices of warfare, and weapons proliferation provide windows for the study of state-building, social change, and conflict in Morocco. The primary methodology is analysis of historical documentation. A series of loose frameworks derived largely from comparative history, historical sociology, and military history by Marshall Hodgson, Andrew Hess, Goeffrey Parker, Frederic Lane, and Charles Tilly set the wider context. Constructs such as the Gunpowder Revolution, the Military Revolution, and the Early Modern State-Building Revolution provide templates for questions related directly to Morocco. What was the role of new styles of warfare in sustaining the process of war as the dominating force in Moroccan society for over a century? In working through this question, the penetration process of gunpowder warfare tools, techniques, and organization into Morocco are also studied. What role did adaption to firearms warfare play in empowering the Sa'adians and ending the "Hundred Years War" with a sovereign, independent Morocco? Our conclusions, briefly, are that firearms appeared in Morocco in smaller quantities but on technological par with the rest of the Hispano-Maghrib. After 1465, guns became dramatically more important--but because of events specific to Morocco and the Hundred Years War more than global forces. Diffusion of cannons and firearms fueled conditions of war for decades, not only between aspiring Moroccan dynasts and European aggressors, but between local societies and intruders determined to subjugate them to extractive protection. Creation of proficient firearms forces by the Sa'adians proved key to unification of Morocco and repulse of Ottoman and Portuguese invasions. Conversely, dissolution of that army precipitated (and explains) the collapse of the absolutist state the dynasty had begun to create.