Infantry in the Middle Ages heavy toll on the English invaders of their lands. Adapted by the English, the longbow was nevertheless a difficult weapon to master, requiring long years of use and practice. Even bow construction was extended, sometimes taking as much as four years for seasoned staves to be prepared and shaped for final deployment. A skilled longbowman could shoot 12 arrows a minute, a rate of fire superior to competing weapons like the crossbow or early gunpowder weapons. The nearest competitor to the longbow was the much more expensive crossbow or Arbalest, used often by urban militias and mercenary forces. It required
A Force More Powerful series explores six successful nonviolent movements in the 20th century, including Mohandas Gandhi's leadership of the Indian Independence movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the boycotts in the Eastern Cape Province as part of the Anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa, the Danish resistance to Nazi Occupation, the Polish Solidarity Movement, and the Chilean democracy movement to oust Augusto Pinochet. "A Force More Powerful" is also the name of the companion book to the PBS series, authored by DuVall and Peter Ackerman. In the Acknowledgments section of the book, the authors name Steve York as their most-cited source. The book was published