Of ‘Master’ and ‘Grand Narratives’ and Their Discontents: Early Modern European Military History

Abstract

This article offers a short, critical survey of the 'grand' or 'master' narratives produced since the 1950s by those discussing the history of war in early modern Europe. It examines in turn the War and Society approach, the concept of a Military Revolution, narratives linking political and social impacts, the more recent models of Fiscal Military and Contractor States, and the debates around the nature of military change. It concludes that grand narratives are always flawed, but we need them to relate or compare what would otherwise be a bewildering array of disconnected stories.