Gunpowder, Masculinity, and Warfare in German Texts, 1400-1700

Guns have been linked with masculinity since their earliest days on European battlefields, and surviving treatises on gunpowder from the early fifteenth century describe in detail the kinds of strong, sober, and God-fearing men who could be trusted to use this new weapon. As the destructive capacity and military tactical value of gunpowder became more evident to European peoples over time, writers--especially German ones--expressed increasing anxiety about the disruptive potential that gunpowder weapons held for warrior masculinity, martial ethics, and the aesthetic traditions of war stories. Focused on early modern German texts of all kinds, including military manuals, poems, theological treatises, novels, and broadsheets, Gunpowder, Masculinity, and Warfare in German Texts, 1400-1700 traces the cultural and literary history of gunpowder in German-speaking lands from the Hussite Wars into the literary aftermath of the Thirty Years War. Taking a long view of this textual and material history, author Patrick Brugh reveals that early conversations about firearms resonate with those today, including debates on such topics as questions of masculine ethos and gun violence, the rights to self-defense and to bear arms, and the way new technologies change how we tell stories. PATRICK BRUGH is an affiliate assistant professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at Loyola University Maryland and an administrator at Johns Hopkins University.