The Mughal Battlefield: Personnel, Technology, and Tactics in the Early Empire, 1500–1605

Although the Mughal Empire was one of the great powers of the Early Modern world, surprisingly few studies of the Empire address its military history. Those that do tend to treat Mughal military practice, and that of the Muslim world in general, as an “inferior control sample” for the successful experiments of the European Military Revolution. As this essay on the practical aspects of Mughal warfare will demonstrate, however, South Asia during this era was far from deficient in military technology and organization. It was, rather, a nexus of innovation and achievement.