Military Sociology

A Guided Introduction

Wilbur J. Scott, Karin Modesto De Angelis, David R. Segal

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781032252919
• eBook ISBN: 9781000817379
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: Social Sciences

This textbook introduces the reader to the field of military sociology through narrative reviews of selected key studies in the discipline.

The book provides a guided introduction. In each chapter, the authors set the stage and then immerse the reader in Spotlights – that is, descriptions of essential studies that inform the discipline of military sociology. The goal is to afford readers a ready pathway into how sociologists and social scientists have thought about topics in the study of the military and war.

Topics covered in the book include:

• What is military sociology? What does it have to offer in understanding armed forces, wars, and societies?
• What basic tools are needed to ply sociological, or more broadly, social science perspectives for studying war and the military?
• What are the bio-social bases of war? What does the spectrum of such societally organized violence look like?
• How do societies raise and maintain formal militaries? What are variations in their social composition and in the profiles of civil–military relations?
• How and why is military organization and war changing so dramatically in the 21st-century? What does the future hold?

This book will be of great interest to students of military sociology, the armed forces and society, peace studies, and International Relations.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Endorsement Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Spotlighted Studies
• Figures
• Tables
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• About the Authors
• 1 The Advent of a Field
• 2 Sociology and Military Sociology
• 3 Biological and Cultural Bases of Warfare
• 4 The Military as a Bureaucracy and as a Profession
• 5 Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines (and Terrorists): Who Fights and Why They Fight
• 6 Race and Ethnicity in Society and in the Military
• 7 Gender and Sexuality in Society and in the Military
• 8 Spectrum of Conflict: “Big” Wars
• 9 Spectrum of Conflict: “Small” Wars
• 10 Spectrum of Conflict: “New” Wars
• 11 Military Families
• 12 Veterans and Veterans’ Issues
• 13 Parting Thoughts: What May Lie Ahead
• Index