Bachelor
2020/2021
War: History and Historiography
Type:
Elective course (History)
Area of studies:
History
Delivered by:
School of History
Where:
Faculty of Humanities
When:
3 year, 1 module
Mode of studies:
offline
Instructors:
Oleg Rusakovskiy
Language:
English
ECTS credits:
3
Contact hours:
28
Course Syllabus
Abstract
The course offers an overview of the history of warfare in context of political, social and cultural history. It traces the developments of the military history from narrowly focused analysis of major battles and campaigns to a dynamic scholarly discipline closely related to some important fields of the historical knowledge, in particular, historical gender and memory studies. It also demonstrates how recent studies of the military history could enrich our understanding of complex historical phenomena such as the emergence of the modern state or the Scientific Revolution. Further, the interdisciplinary potential of the military history is discussed. Lectures will provide a general survey on the most influential historiographical concepts, actual research debates and seminal works on the subject. In seminars, we will discuss key methods used in military history on behalf of selected cases covering different epochs and geographical areas.
Learning Objectives
- • to introduce students to key historiographical concepts and debates concerning the military history • to familiarize students with some important fields of nowadays historical studies applied to the military history • to provide students with basic methods used in the historical studies of warfare and to relate these methods to their own research fields • to enhance skills in close reading and analysis of relevant secondary literature • to develop students’ foreign language skills in application to their individual research and presentations
Expected Learning Outcomes
- To understand the main trends in the developments of the historiography and historical writing about warfare from the European Antiquity to the Present
- To know the main perspectives and problems of the operational military history as a subdiscipline
- To know the main trends in the recent military historiography relating to political processes and state formation
- To know the main branches in the 'new history of war' relating to the problem of 'war and society'
- To know the main developments in the recent history of violence and related disciplines
- To know some recent research trends in the recent historiography of memory and culture of warfare
- To know the recent developments in the conflict archeology and new interdisciplinary approaches to the military history
Course Contents
- Introduction. War in HistoriographyThe main developments in the attitudes towards the history of wars and military history from Antiquity to the Enlightenment. Karl von Clausewitz. History written by military professionals in the 19th century. Split between academic history and military history. Hans Delbrück. The modern concepts of strategy and history: Alfred Mahan and Basil Liddell Hart. The crisis of the traditional military history after the Second World War. ‘New military history’: Cultural histories of war and violence, social history of war. John Keegan. New attitudes from other social sciences. The history of war in recent university courses across the world. The main prospective and challenges for the recent military history. Overview of the course.
- Operational History of WarfareA historiographical overview. Analyzes of the prominent battles and campaigns from Antiquity to the 18th century. The ideas of ‘tactic’ and ‘strategy’ in historical development. The emphasis on battle in the Napoleonic age. The operational history in curriculum of military education and military science from the 19th century to the present. The scholarly reaction to traditional operational history. Delbrück’s analyzes of particular military events. The ‘day school’ and its critics: John Keegan and John Lynn. Tactical and strategic cultures: ‘German way of war’ and ‘Western Way of War’. Recent studies on strategy, logistic and supply. Actual attempts to combine traditional operation history with cultural, political and social approaches.
- War, State and Political HistoryThe conjunction between war and state in history. Enlightenment ideas on wealth, military and the power of nations: Adam Smith and Eduard Gibbon. Nation at war in the 19th century. Clausewitz’s interpretation of war as ‘conduct of politics by other means’ Marxist interpretation of war and revolution. Recent historical discussions on war and state. The ‘state building’ and ‘military revolution’ in the Early Modern Period: Geoffrey Parker and Jeremy Black. ‘Total war’ as an economic and technological phenomenon. Asymmetric warfare in history and today. Paramilitaries as object of historical and sociological studies. War and the ‘failed states’ in today’s third world.
- War and SocietyPremodern ideas on military and society. Regimental history of the 19th century and positivistic approach to sources in military history. Marxist interpretation of military service. The French Annales school: George Duby. The birth of the ‘social history of war’ in the 1960 and 1970s: André Corvisier and Bernhard Kroener. The critics of the ‘new military history’. Sources to study in a ‘social history of war’. Sociological approach to ‘military communities’ today. Recent database projects. Impact of warfare on societies. Gender, race and class in recent histories of war.
- Anthropology and History of Violence and WarfareHistorical quest for the bellicosity of the human beings. The Ancient concepts of ‘barbarity’ and ‘civilization’. The idea of ‘laws of war’. Different conceptions of the human nature in the Enlightenment: Thomas Hobbes and Jean Jacques Rousseau. Social Darwinism in the 19th century. Freudist interpretation of war and violence. Influences from the natural sciences: ethology, evolutionary biology and the problem of violence. Violence in prehistorical societies: Margaret Mead and Napoleon Chagnon. Historical contributions to the recent discussions: Keegan, Martin van Creveld and Azar Gat. Violence, war and crime in historical research. Religious and ethnic violence in history. Ritual of violence. History of peace.
- War in Culture and MemoryWar as subject for art and literature from Antiquity to the 19th century. Memoirs as a part of military historiography in the 19th century. Commemoration of wars in the modern state. Military history and the history of memory. Wars as ‘sites of memory’. History of commemoration and history of destruction. Historical trauma studies. Historical reenactment and professional community.
- Archeology of Conflicts and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Military HistoryOccasional excavations on sites of military events in the premodern era. Archeology of the 19th and 20th century and war studies. Material cultures of war. Tests on historical weapons. Recent battlefield archeology and ‘archeology of conflicts’. War graves and physical anthropology as method of historical studies. The concept of ‘archeology of conflicts’ and its critics. ‘Spatial turn’ in military history and new technologies. Modelling history of war: socio-economic approaches and operational history in the computer age.
Interim Assessment
- Interim assessment (1 module)0.3 * Essay + 0.4 * Oral exam + 0.3 * Seminar participation
Bibliography
Recommended Core Bibliography
- Braxton Boren. (2018). Acoustic Simulation of Julius Caesar’s Battlefield Speeches. https://doi.org/10.3390/acoustics1010002
- Harari, Y. N. (2007). The Concept of “Decisive Battles” in World History. Journal of World History, 18(3), 251–266. https://doi.org/10.1353/jwh.2007.0022
- Lawlor, R. (2020). Contested Crimes: Race, Gender, and Nation in Histories of GI Sexual Violence, World War II. Journal of Military History, 84(2), 541–569.
- Napoleon A. Chagnon. (n.d.). 0- Life Histories, Blood Revenge, and Warfare in a Tribal Population.
Recommended Additional Bibliography
- Jurger Brauer, Hubert van Tuyll (2008): Castles, Battles, and Bombs: How Economics Explains Military History, Chicago, University of Chicago Press