Hoffman Tournament Model Case Study

Hoffman presents a case for European dominance in gunpowder technology based upon economic principles. In the tournament model, pairs of rulers are pitted against each other, with each conflict providing a chance to lead to technological innovation. Thus, more conflicts lead to more innovation. However, constant warring occurs only under certain circumstances. Furthermore, technological and political progress only result from war under even stricter conditions.

Western Europe was the perfect setting for developing the gunpowder technologies. The region satisfied all four conditions of the tournament model. Firstly, in Western Europe, rulers had a great affinity for war and viewed the prizes (glory, territory, victory over enemies of the faith) as very valuable. Moreover, rulers also faced very similar variable costs of mobilizing resources for war. The tax revenues raised in major powers were nearly equal, and the sizes of European powers were also usually comparable. Secondly, Western European powers spent heavily on war compared to other Eurasian powers, such as China and the Ottoman Empire. Thirdly, because of the focus on siege warfare and the lack of

Rather than accepting oversimplified arguments centered on the frequency of war or the usefulness of gunpowder weapons, the tournament model offers a combination of these factors. However, the model also provides new causes, namely the relationship between the variable cost of mobilizing resources for warfare and the value of the prize of winning. Hoffman shows that, if the variable cost is not low enough in comparison to the prize, lavish spending on warfare will not occur. In this case, innovation will be much less likely to result from war. Overall, Hoffman shows that even in the case of constant warfare with gunpowder weapons, the variable cost of war must be low and the prize must be