ABSTRACT
In the light of such mockery, the present generation of explosives historians is indeed fortunate to have had the path towards the recognition of the importance and respectability of this subject opened up by scholars such as the eminent Sinologist and historian of science Joseph Needham. In 1986 a volume entitled The Gunpowder Epic, which had been in preparation with the assistance of research colleagues for over four decades, was published as part
of Needham’s major series on Science and Civilisation in China.4 The restrictions of time and place indicated by this title are no disadvantage to us, for they serve to emphasise the broad historical and geographical sweep of the subject. With its ninth century AD origins in China, the knowledge of gunpowder emerged from the search by alchemists for the secrets of life, to filter through the channels of Middle Eastern culture, and take root in Europe with consequences that form the context of the studies in this volume.
