Military history

Military History is the study of armies, battles and soldiers, as well as strategies, tactics, technology and logistics of warfare. It includes the history of naval and air warfare.

Military history is sometimes disparaged as non-analytical narrative in which a popular writer provides little more than a chronology of generals and battles. Analysis of one hundred of the early 21st century's best military histories reveals that current military history goes well beyond such subject matter, incorporating social, cultural, and political history. Common areas of inquiry for contemporary historians include the impact of society, culture, and politics on a country's ability to wage war; the social, cultural, and political aftereffects of war; the society and culture of military organizations; and the relationship between military organizations and the communities from which they spring. While historians continue to devote considerable attention to the conventional militaries of Europe and the United States, many also are studying small armies, irregular forces, nonstate actors, civil wars, and non-Western armed forces. Within the military realm, historians frequently tackle subjects of much greater complexity than the generals-and-battles stereotype would suggest, to include the relationship between technological and human factors, the interdependency of land and naval warfare, and the influence of political direction on the military.

H-War, founded in March, 1995, is a moderated email-based discussion group and bulletin board for scholars, librarians, and teachers in the field of military history. Postings appear daily, and membership is free. H-War focuses particularly on research and teaching interests, new scholarship in the field, discussions of military historiography that foster critical thinking and enhance professionalism, and the sharing of knowledge and experience about the teaching of military history, including posting and discussion of course syllabi and reading lists. The discussion logs are open. In addition, H-War welcomes announcements from scholarly and professional societies or other organizations about their journals, conferences, fellowships, and funding opportunities; encourages organizers of conferences to send calls for papers and program content and graduate students to post abstracts of their doctoral dissertations and research papers; and provides a forum for information on bibliographic and archival sources, as well as reports on new software, datasets, or Web sites relevant to military history.

Bibliography

• Black, Jeremy. "Determinisms and Other Issues," Journal of Military History, 68 (Oct. 2004), 1217–32.
• Chambers II, John Whiteclay. "The New Military History: Myth and Reality," Journal of Military History, 55 (July 1991), 395–406
• Charters, David A., Marc Milner, and J. Brent Wilson. eds. Military History and the Military Profession, ed. (Westport, 1992)
• Dupuy, R. Ernest and Trevor N. Dupuy. The Encyclopedia of Military History: From 3500 B.C. to the Present (1977), 1465pp; comprehensive discussion focused on wars and battles
• Grimsley, Mark. "Why Military History Sucks," Nov. 1996, War Historian.org, online at [2]
• Karsten, Peter. ed., Encyclopedia of War and American Society (3 vols., 2005).
• Karsten, Peter. "The 'New' American Military History: A Map of the Territory, Explored and Unexplored," American Quarterly, 36 #3, (1984), 389–418
• Kohn, Richard H. "The Social History of the American Soldier: A Review and Prospectus for Research," American Historical Review, 86 (June 1981), 553–67.
• Lee, Wayne E. "Mind and Matter—Cultural Analysis in American Military History: A Look at the State of the Field," Journal of American History, 93 (March 2007), 1116–42. Fulltext: History Cooperative and Ebsco
• Lynn, John A. Battle: A Cultural History of Combat and Culture (2003).
• Lynn, John A. "Rally Once Again: The Embattled Future of Academic Military History," Journal of Military History, 61 (Oct. 1997), 777–89.
• Moyar, Mark. "The Current State of Military History." Historical Journal 2007 50(1): 225-240. Issn: 0018-246x
• Paret, Peter, Gordon A. Craig, and Felix Gilbert, eds. Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (1986) influential intellectual history of all the mjor military thinkers
• Paret, Peter. Clausewitz and the State: The Man, His Theories, and His Times (2007)
• Seager II, Robert. Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His Letters (Annapolis, 1977).
• Shy, John. "The Cultural Approach to the History of War," Journal of Military History, 57 (Oct. 1993), 13–26
• Spector, Ronald H. "Teetering on the Brink of Respectability." Journal of American History 2007 93(4): 1158-1160. Issn: 0021-8723 Fulltext: [ 1. History Cooperative] and Ebsco
• Spiller, Roger. "Military History and its Fictions." Journal of Military History 2006 70(4): 1081-1097. Issn: 0899-3718 Fulltext: Ebsco
• Weigley, Russell F. The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy (1973).

External links

• "Web Sources for Military History" by Richard Jensen guide to web sources for from ancient history to present day
• H-WAR

---