The Greek philosopher Heraclitus once remarked, âWar is the father of all things.â Since our earliest Greek historians, Herodotus and Thucydides, both wrote on war then perhaps it follows that history of warfare is the father of all historical study. That is an overstatement, but there is no denying the importance of warfare and militaryârelated topics in early historiography. These Greek authors did not invent military history. Earlier societies and states in Egypt, the ancient Near East, and throughout the Mediterranean basin preserved accounts of warfare and military preparation in songs, texts, and art. As has been noted elsewhere, warfare was a fundamental occupation and concern of all ancient societies around the Mediterranean Sea (Fagan and Trundle 2010). No wonder there are so many texts and images dealing with it. The topic's importance to historical understanding is clear so it should not be surprising that military history remained for ages one of the dominant fields of history.
Regardless of whether it is actually the âfatherâ of any field, military history has remained important and popular over the centuries. The popularity is grounded in the fact that military history has served numerous purposes including entertainment, explanation of the past and present (incorporating propaganda), leadership skills, criticism of leaders and peers, demonstration of authorsâ knowledge of history and writers, civic training, antiquarianism, and displays of literary or rhetorical (and often both) skills, among other things. Readers have similarly drawn on military history for entertainment, education and training, decisionâmaking, career preparation, and leadership skills, among other things. In bookstores, visual media, video games, and in the classroom military history enjoys a level of popularity with readers common to few other historical fields (Biddell and Citino 2014; Armstrong 2016, pp. 1â2; Morillo and Pavkovic 2017, pp. 1â9).
But as Biddell and Citino have pointed out, such popularity has been a doubleâedged sword (2014, pp. 2â3). It provides interest and demand but also provides works of extremely mixed quality on popular topics. This popularity has led some potential readers and scholars to dismiss the field as too popular, while others see it as obsolete (Citino 2007; Hanson 2007, pp. 10â14). Such readers are often unaware that military history is more than arms and armor; it is an interdisciplinary field that has grown and changed much since the Second World War.1
Approaches to Military History
Traditional military history has primarily focused on operational history (including battle narratives, tactics, strategy, and operations) and consideration of famous personalities. Battlefield narratives date back to New Kingdom Egypt and have long been a staple in military history. They fill educational and training roles for students and officers as well as providing entertainment for diverse audiences. Operational histories in particular have carried the negative label âdrums and trumpetsâ because of the focus on battle narratives and a tendency at times toward nationalism. The focus on military personalities like Alexander or Julius Caesar has similarly fulfilled a desire to explain and educate readers about military success and failure as well as entertain. When most military history was written by military men for militaryâminded readers, as was long the case, these were the topics on which they focused as most useful. Criticism of both these topics focuses on how little they actually tell us about warfare, its history, and its place in culture (Chambers 1991, pp. 397â398, citing Kohn and Paret; Rosenstein 2009; contra Hanson 2007; Loreto 2015). These criticisms are fair of much traditional work, but it is important to acknowledge also that these topics remain a key component of military history. Besides their popularity, these kinds of work require a great deal of skill to complete well and can be outstanding treatments that can be extremely informative of not only their primary focus but also contextualizing their topic historically and culturally (Showalter 1975; Biddle and Citino 2014, pp. 3â4). This traditional fodder of military history dominates public perceptions of military history.
A third subject common in traditional military history has been the study of the various parts and minute pieces of warfare and military institutions such as arms, armor, ranks, insignia, and similar particulars. Obsession with labeling and describing these kinds of details and other minutiae has not become less antiquarian with time (Spiller 2006). While much of ancient history has moved on from antiquarianism, these kinds of military works remain popular with numerous readers, not limited to gamers and modelers (Bishop and Coulston 2006) and they can be useful for understanding the material culture of an army, such as what was recovered at the 9 CE battlefield of Kalkriese (Berger et al. 1996â2013). Until recently, however, these works seldom led to broader examinations of the infrastructure that created and distributed such items or of their cultural implications (James 2011).
New Military History, as it came to be known, emerged in publications from the late 1960s as a product of the changes that swept through all fields of history after the two world wars. Just as historians in other specializations drew on methods and approaches new to them, like anthropology and sociology, to engage in more social and cultural history after 1945, so did military historians. It had actually begun in Europe during the interwar period, but it took until the early 1970s for the ânewâ military history approaches to become the dominant wave among academic historians. New Military History is sometimes referred to as the âwar and society schoolâ of history because of its explicit turn away from operational histories, military principles, and command instruction to examine the impact of war on the larger society and, later, the impact of broader society and culture on warfare and military institutions (Bourke 2006; Spiller 2006). The new methods brought in more modeling and theory. These trends affected ancient history as much as modern military history (Hanson 2007; Fagan and Trundle 2010, pp. 1â19; Brice and Roberts 2011). New Military History was not a new field and it did not obliterate traditional military history, even if it felt that way to some people (Loreto 2015). It was another school of thought in the military history tent, and the name did not age well.
John Keegan in 1976 introduced in the midst of the New Military History a new approach to grasping soldiers' experience in combat. His seminal work, Face of Battle (1976), attempted to provide a soldier's perspective approach to the sharp end of battle. He complained that the war and society trend had, among other issues, âlost sight of what armies were forâ (Keegan 1976, p. 28 quoting M. Howard). In its focus on battles it was traditional, but his attempt to examine battle from the soldiers' point of view reflected the social history approach (history from the bottom up) of which he was critical. Critics noted that Keegan's book was imperfect, but it captured readers' attention. It spawned a new âschoolâ of military history as it inspired historians to apply Keegan's methods to other armies including those in the ancient world. Victor Hanson applied it to hoplite armies in 1989 (new edition 2009) and there have been a number of related studies on Roman armies (Goldsworthy 1996; Sabin 2000; Daly 2001). The new works have been popular and stimulated much discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of the approach (Wheeler 2011, pp. 64â75). The methods of the âface of battle schoolâ may be imperfect, but the âschoolâ did much to reinvigorate military history and contributed to the growth of the field in the decades that followed.
Another approach to military history that has become increasingly popular among scholars and students of history is grounded in a technocentric focus of analysis and explanation of war in history. In such works authors tend to treat technology â its adoption, development, impact, or failure to be open to it â as the key to the history of warfare. In a way, this trend is related closely to the antiquarian fascination discussed previously. This tech approach is as popular in visual media, such as television and video games, as it is in published works on warfare. Works in this vein tend to take a deterministically progressive view of history as if all innovation was leading to the present. Such works tend to privilege weapons over the individuals who develop, distribute, and employ them. Given the role of technology in our daily lives, such a connection in history may seem natural. Also, because it is (or it seems) newer than âdrums and trumpetsâ it has been popular among academic as well as nonâacademic authors and analysts. This approach is also common in works written by members of the strategic studies community who may be trying to influe...
