This book analyzes the underlying structure and dynamic forces that have shaped the international trade in arms from the development of military technologies in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to the twentieth-century revolutions in weaponry. The author discusses the political, economic and military motivations that drive states to produce and export arms, and examines the different ways in which states respond to these motivations. By focusing on the processes of technological innovation and diffusion he is able to sketch an evolutionary picture of the diffusion of new military technology, and place the current arms trade in historical perspective.