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This article reflects on the dynamics that underlay the circulation of military technology during the early modern phase of globalization. The debate on the development and transfer of gunpowder weaponry has been dominated by a grid of analysis which implicitly puts value on sovereign production and direct state control over the resources used for war. Focusing on the transfer of naval artillery between Europe and Asia, the article argues for the need to expand the scope of analysis of the contractor state, so far centred on Europe, and study the potential world-scale of the market for naval resources and services in the period between 1500 and 1750. It also highlights the need to replace the reading of technological transfers centred on nation-states by a more fluid and transnational vision which articulates the demand stemming from both states and non-state actors and the rise of regional clusters specialized in providing naval technology with competitive levels of prices, in an age of increasingly interconnected maritime economies. Therefore, the article aims to show why naval artillery, despite being a protagonist of old imperialistic narratives, is still a relevant object of study for the agenda of global history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to develop a refined gravity model for the quantitative assessment of competitive hub status of cities between 2000 and 2012 from the perspective of international air traffic movements. Its focus of attention is Europe and Asia, where cross border competition has been witnessed among major cities for the role as a key international air traffic hub. To this end, the research incorporates global network connectivity (GNC) as a measure of business connections into an established gravity model that previously relied on GDP per head, population and distance to account for international air links. The results confirm the dynamic change of the air transport city hierarchy, demonstrating a stronger presence of a number of previously secondly ranked cities as international air traffic hubs over this period. The paper concludes with suggestions that possible extension of geographical scope and incorporation of domestic air traffic could enrich the insight of this approach. • Hub status of cities is assessed from an international air traffic perspective. • Networks of inter-city air traffic flows in Europe and Asia are explored. • Business connectivity is the most powerful in explaining international air links. • Secondly ranked cities are now more prominent in the region's urban hierarchies. • New airports and integrators' hubs have significant effect on cities' mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In January 2012, the US administration released new strategic guidance for the Department of Defense entitled ‘Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense’. Two different security approaches seem to coincide in this document. By providing a governmental reading of the new strategic guidance, the aim of this article is to discuss if and how the guidance links a sovereign security understanding of great power politics on one side to governmental rationalities on the other. First, the guidance is discussed with regard to its main aims and strategies; then, second, the impact of governmentality in the guidance is revealed and systematized. Finally, the function that governmental logics have in the document, and the conceptual and political role that the minimally mediated encounter of sovereign (military) power politics with governmental rationalities plays, are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Is Geopolitics back? By visiting four important Asian states in April 2014 President Barack Obama gave new momentum to his long-proclaimed pivot to the Pacific region. The gradual drawdown of U.S. interest in Europe poses new challenges to the 'old continent' while opening new opportunities at the same time. Europe will now have to carry more of the burden of its own security. A European Union, however, that takes the necessary efforts to overcome its foreign policy divides may become better situated to improve stability and enhance peaceful relations in its area of influence. A stronger Europe could increase its political commitment in Asia, not only by supporting the U.S. in its difficult task as a regional security broker, but also to pursue its vital economic interest in the region, especially vis-à-vis a rising China. The U.S. pivot is not about forsaking the Europeans. It is a wake-up call for the European countries to continue the path of deeper integration to eventually become a unified global actor. If they fail to achieve that goal they might be ending up as an assembly of marginalized political dwarfs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Italian translation Montesquieu's Réflexions sur la monarchie universelle en Europe (1734), by Domenico Felice