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

"Guns have been linked with masculinity in the European imagination since their earliest days. Focused on early modern German texts, including military manuals, poems, novels, and broadsheets, this book traces the cultural history of gunpowder in German-speaking lands from the Hussite Wars to the Thirty Years War. 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 their disruptive potential for ideals of warrior masculinity, martial ethics, and the aesthetic foundations of war stories"--