MILS 460
War and Society

This course addresses the inseparable connection between warfighting and society. It provides a survey of the effects of war and military institutions on society in recent history, primarily in western societies during the two world wars (although students are encouraged to do research papers within a broader understanding of the topic, including earlier or later times and other places). It also examins the

Course Objectives

Students will acquire a broad understanding of wartime societies and military-civilian interaction,especially over the past 150 years. Topics which we will be discussing in class are the following 16 units:

the role of the military in socializing members to society
the demographic and economic effects of war on modern societies
the social-psychological effects of wartime (mobilization, shelling, aireal bombardment, blockade, occupation, etc.)
the social-psychological effects of the threat of war (pending invasion, nuclear or other crisis)
the role of societal institutions in wartime or in preparation for war (governments, churches, veterans groups, the military itself)
the public memory of war (memorials, anniversaries, the use of past wars in political life, the legacy of civil war).
how the structures of societies and how they change lead to changing ideas about the planning and conduct of military technology and operations.

Textbooks

For all sections starting any time up until March, 2009, the textbooks are as listed:

Audoin-Rouzeau, Stephane; Becker, Annette: 14-18. Understanding the Great War. New York, 2000.
Fussell, Paul: Wartime. Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War. New York and Oxford, 1989.
Gat, Azar: War in Human Civilization. Oxford, 2006.

For later sections of the class, the textbook list is:

Audoin-Rouzeau, Stephane; Becker, Annette: 14-18. Understanding the Great War. New York, 2000.
Bacevich, Andrew: The New American Militarism. How Americans are seduced by war. Oxford/New York, 2005.

The textbooks and scholarly articles on war and society we will be reading and discussing cover case studies from the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, the Soviet Union and Israel.

Methodology and Assignments

Class Participation

The class centers on a series of thematic units from week to week. Students will react to the reading and the broad questions posed by the instructor and discuss the material. Student interaction will be graded on quanitity and quality - as measured by the extent to which they indicate student understanding, assimilation and consideration of the material and student responses to each other.

The units include the nature of military history; the armed forces and modern society; gender; besieged and occupied populations; culture (literature, art, societal norms); emotional and physical mobilization; mass death, remembrance and collective mourning; making soldiers, training and violence.

Research Paper

Students will select a topic relevant to our course that is of particular interest to them and write a research paper of no fewer than 10 pages (including title page and bibliography page – so at least eight pages of text). The subject of the paper will take the form of a question. That is, the basis of the paper is an historical inquiry – not just a “topic".

You may come up with an idea of your own from any period or war from the Napoleonic Wars up to the present day on any society. The title of the paper does not need to take the form of a question, but a research question should become clear to the reader in the introduction. And the writing in the paper should be focused on answering that research question. Data and ideas presented should contribute to the answer and not just fill pages.

I will consult with students about topic ideas and suggest improvements for any work submitted in advance. Consultation is mandatory. If you haven’t written a research paper before or have had difficulty doing so, it is suggested that you consult the “Quigley-Nelson Guide". Please see my Policy on Research Papers for more information on my expectations.

Memorial Project

A highlight of the course is the opportunity to produce and publish original historical research. Each student investigates a war or genocide memorial and submits photographs, a descrption and an analysis of it. Full instructions for this unique assignment are online at sites-of-memory.de.

Articles on the 150th Anniversary of the American Civil War

Dionne, E.J.: Let's Not Spin the Civil War. Truthdig, 26 December, 2010.

Links for Course Units

Week 1 - Origins of Human Conflict

Howard Zinn video interview on killing

Week 2 - War, Society and Modernity

Week 3 - World War One

These three sites will get you started on just about any aspect of the First World War from combat to poetry, zeppelins to women in the workforce.

http://onwar.com/ has maps, articles and lots of other information on dozens of military conflicts.
A wide variety of primary source documents, photos and other resources can be found at the World War One Document Archive. The site includes links to other World War One sites, including scholarly articles.
FirstWorldWar.com is a multi-media history of the conflict with a wide range of material.
This is a long list of links to items on the First World War.

Week 4 - Collective Memory and Contested Sites

The H-Memory Discussion Network is a scholarly source for information on collective memory.
Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
Mark Hatlie's description of the commemoration of the bombing of Dresden
Deserters memorial in Ulm, Germany
Deserters memorial in Stuttgart, Germany
A review on Jörg Friedrich's book Der Brand
A resource page at h-net on Der Brand

Week 5 - Collective Memory and Political Mourning

Mark Hatlie's Sites of Memory webpage, the page where your memorial submissions will be linked
Deconstructing Historical Markers
Instructions for the memorial assignment
Memorial assignment - description worksheet
Memorial assignment - analysis worksheet

Week 6 - Conscription and Military Service

Week 7 - The American Experience / Term paper due

Readings

These readings are recommended for our discussions and student research on their projects. Some are mandatory for discussions during the class.

Black, Jeremy: Military Organizations and Military Change in Historical Perspective. The Journal of Military History, Vol. 62, No. 4, (Oct. 1998), 871-892.
Chambers, John Whiteclay: The New Military History, Myth and Reality. The Journal of Military History, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Jul 1991), 395-406.
Clark, Christopher: The Wars of Liberation in Prussian Memory: Reflections on Memorialization of War in Early Nineteenth Century Germany.The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 68, No. 3, (Sept. 1996), 550-576.
Dawson, Graham; Roper, Michael; Ashplant, T. G: (Eds.) The Politics of War Memory and Commemorations. Routledge, 2000. (This title is availabe through the APUS online library.)
Fuller, Leon W.: The War of 1914 as Interpreted by German Intellectuals, The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 14, No. 2 (June, 1942), 145-160.
Grandstaff, Mark R.: Making the Military American. Advertizing, Reform, and the Demise of an Antistanding Military Tradition, 1945-1955. The Journal of Military History, Vol. 60, No. 2 (Apr. 1996), 299-393.
Hacker, Barton C.: Engineering a New Order: Military Institutions, Technical Education, and the Rise of the Industrial State, Technology and Culture, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Jan, 1993), 1-27.
Kasekamp, Andres: Radical Right-Wing Movements in the North-East Baltic, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Oct. 1999), 587-600.
Janda, Lance: Shutting the Gates of Mercy: The American Origins of Total War, 1860-1880. The Journal of Military History, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Jan. 1995), 7-26.
Klang, Daniel: Bavaria and the War of Liberation, 1813-1814, French Historical Studies, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring, 1965), 22-41.
Kohn, Hans: The Eve of German Nationalism (1789-1812), Journal of History of Ideas, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Apr. 1951), 256-284.
Lehmann, Hartmut: Pietism and Nationalism: The Relationship between Protestant Revivalism and National Renewal in Nineteenth-Century Germany. Church History, Vol. 51, No. 1 (Mar, 1982), 39-53.
Loveland, Anne C.: Character Education in the U.S. Army, 1947-1977. The Journal of Military History, Vol.64, No. 3 (Jul. 2000), 795-818.
Mosse, George L.: Shell-Shock as a Social Disease. Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 35, No. 1, Special Issue: Shell-Shock (Jan. 2000), 101-108.
Olick, Jeffrey K.: Genre Memories and Memory Genres: A Dialogical Analysis of May 8, 1945. Commemorations in the Federal Republic of Germany. American Sociological Review, Vol. 64, No. 3 (June 1999), 381-402.
Olick, Jeffrey K.: What Does It Mean to Normalize the past? Offical Memory in German Politics since 1989. Social Science History, Vol. 22, No. 4, Special Issue: Memory and the Nation (Winter 1998), 547-571.
Peiser, Douglas: Commemoration of Mutiny, Rebellion, and Resistance in Postwar Germany: Public Memory, History, and the Formation of Memory Beacons. The Journal of Military History, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Oct. 2001), 1013-1052.
Posen, Barry R.: Nationalism, the Mass Army and Military Power. International Security, Vol. 18, No. 2, (Autumn 1993), 80-124.
Regan, Patrick M.: War Toys, War Movies and the Militarization of the United States, 1900-1985. Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 31, No. 1 (1994), 45-58.
Shy, John: A Cultural Approach to the History of War. The Journal of Military History Special Issue: Proceedings of the Symposium on "The History of War as Part of General History" at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, New Jersey, (Oct. 1993), 13-26.
Showalter, Dennis E.: Army and Society in Imperial Germany: The Pains of Modernization, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 18, No. 4, Military History (Oct. 1983), 583-618.
Showalter, Dennis E.: A Modest Plea for Drums and Trumpets, Military Affairs, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Apr 1979), 71-74.
Wawro, Geoffrey: An "Army of Pigs": The Technical, Social, and Political Basis of Austrian Shock Tactics, 1859-1866. The Journal of Military History, Vol. 59, No. 3 (Jul. 1995), 407-433.
Westerman, Edward B.: "Friend and Helper": German Uniformed Police Operations in Poland and the General Government, 1939-1941. The Journal of Military History, Vol. 58, No. 4, (Oct. 1994), 643-664.
Yelton, David K.: British Public Opinion, the Home Guard, and the Defense of Great Britian, 1940-1944. The Journal of Military History, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Jul. 1994), 461-480.