The French Grand Armee and Defensive Developmentalism

This post will probably be solely for my own benefit, but here goes.

A while ago, I posted about my early 2014 reading goals. My first literary conquest of the year was What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East by Bernard Lewis, which had been recommended many years ago by my Islamic civ professor. One of the things that Lewis discussed was the Ottoman Empire's efforts to modernize its military during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Thinking about that effort reminded me of a concept described by James L. Gelvin in his book The Modern Middle East: A History by James L. Gelvin. I haven't read that book, but that same professor discussed it in class a couple of years ago when I was sitting in on one of his courses.

Gelvin describes a concept called "defensive developmentalism", which you can read a bit more about here. This was a concept in the Middle East in the late 1800's and early 1900's in which Middle Eastern leaders focused on modernizing their military, which then served as a sort of catalyst for developing industry and society. For some reason, even though I keyed in on that concept when we discussed it in class, it took reading that Lewis book to connect it to another book that I read, this time in preparation for grad school.

In the third chapter of World Politics and the Evolution of War by John J. Weltman - one of my pre-readings for grad school, which has become one of my favorite books that I've ever read - the author discusses the way that the French Revolution changed the way that wars were fought. I won't go too deep into detail, but apparently the social and economic changes which took place in revolutionary France allowed for more effective standing armies, which were able to equip themselves more efficiently and wage prolonged campaigns which were impossible beforehand. Reading Lewis, it struck me how potentially game-changing concepts and practices such as these could have been for the Middle East during the era of defensive developmentalism.

I have another book about the French Revolution entitled The Place of the French Revolution in History by Marvin R. Cox. It was assigned when I was an undergrad, and I have yet to read it, so maybe I'll add it to the list later this year. That's it. I thought the connection between the French Revolution and defensive developmentalism was an interesting concept, and I wanted to share.