Choose a specific commodity, idea, or institution and evaluate its Essay

Choose a specific commodity, idea, or institution and evaluate its impact on history at any point prior to 1815 - Essay Example It gives brief information about the impact of gunpowder on history and also explains how it created gunpowder empires. This paper also focuses on the most famous Gunpowder Empires in the early modern period. The creation of gunpowder empires was considered to be a giant leap for Islamic countries towards stabilizing the politics and identifying themselves as territories. All these empires impacted politics and cultures of various parts of the world. Invention of Fireworks, which is led by Gunpowder in the 9th century by Chinese Alchemists as an elixir of immortality has largely impacted the entire world (Sivin, Nathan, 1994). Initially gunpowder was used in fireworks and pill-making process in the 9th century. When the formulae of gunpowder came to the strategists, they made it as a substance, which was explosive in nature. According to the Chinese formulae in the 10th and 11th centuries, Gunpowder was made with 27 to 50 percent of nitrate. But as time passed, the nitrate levels in Gunpowder was increased to large extent so that it could become an explosive bomb such as grenade bomb. When you read the book â€Å"Huolongjing† written by Jiao Yu, you can clearly understand that the nitrate levels in the 14th century were increased to 90 percent (Needham, Joseph, 1986) Most of the Islamic countries were also impacted due to the Gunpowder. By the mid of the 12th century most of the Arab scientists also acquired the knowledge on gunpowder. During the wars against Transoxania in 1219 and 1240, Genghis Khan used a Chinese catapult unit to invade Caucasus. It is not a surprise to say that the invention or introduction of Gunpowder had changed the destiny of many wars in the world (Khan, Iqtidar Alam, 1994). With the introduction of Gunpowder to Medieval Army, the facets of medieval warfare have been changed. The use of Gunpowder had been continued in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries in