Did The Egg Come First John Lynn Analysis

Evolution or Revolution: Did the Chicken or the Egg Come First?

Lynn, John. “The Evolution of Army Style in the Modern West, 800-2000,” The International History Review 18, no. 3 (1996): 505-545.

John Lynn in his article “The Evolution of Army Styles in the Modern West” gives an alternative view to conceptualizing the evolution of the armies in the west. Lynn argues that it is institutional factors that are of great importance in understanding the evolution of militaries in the west. Although Lynn does not reject the technological and tactical components in the process of the creation of modern militaries, he does not view these factors as a driving evolutionary force. The author sees the evolution of western militaries as a continuum that is shaped by what Lynn refers to as “paradigmatic states”.
Technological advancements could play a role in this area to explain the change in the trajectory, but the author’s rejection of technological answers does not allow him to do this. Also, Lynn concentrates on institutional factors (recruitment, social composition, and motivation, command administration) to describe his model for evolution yet at various occasions he emphasizes political-economic, military competitiveness, and minimally technological advancements as his explanatory factors for change. Lynn does not clearly give explanation to what brought on the change in different army styles. In one army style military unreliability, increased political centralization, and increased economic monetarization are emphasized and in other centuries technological improvements or political costs are seen as the most influential. In this way Lynn’s explanatory factors are not internally consistent from century to century. For example, if technology had an impact in one time period than Lynn does not give valid reasoning for why it was not considered important in another