SOCS 617
War and Society
Peter Rutland
| Readings |
| ***The following books should be red in advance of the course***
Barbara Ehrenreich, Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War Robert L. O’Connell, Of Arms and Men A.C. Grayling, Among the Dead Cities. The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan All of the optional supplementary readings, and some of the video clips, will be available on the Blackboard website for the course. Each day the class will use a mixture of lecture, student presentation, and video clips to avoid monotony. |
| Expectations |
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Students will be asked to make three short (5-10 minute) presentations on a book or article on three different topics. These presentations may be focused on a section of one of the course textbooks, or they may be on a separate topic covered in one or more of the supplementary readings. The grading will be 50% class presentations and general discussion, and 50% the final paper. The final paper, 10-12 pages long and on a topic agreed with the author or taken from a list to be issued by the instructor, should be submitted no later than July 3rd. Readings that are listed for each session are required for all students, the supplementary readings listed in the bibliography are optional, they may be used for a class presentation or for the final paper. |
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June 18 Monday morning WHY DO MEN FIGHT WARS? A discussion of the Ehrenreich book. What role does warfare play in structuring social relations and particularly gender relations? What were the goals of war in pre-modern societies? How was the fighting organized? What weapons were used? What roles do women play in wartime? Why do men usually exclude them from combat roles? |
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June 18 Monday afternoon FEUDAL WARFARE Warfare was pivotal to the emergence of the feudal order in Europe. What new technologies were key to the rise of the knight? Why did this social formation emerge in Western Europe? What was the role of money and of honor in feudal warfare? How did Japanese feudalism compare with the European model? THE GUNPOWDER REVOLUTION (1450-1700) How was gunpowder used in medieval battles and sieges? Why did it undermine the feudal order in Europe (but not in Japan)? What were the characteristics of the professional armies that emerged in early modern Europe? How were European armies able to conquer the Americas? |
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June 19 Tuesday morning THE NAPOLEONIC WARS Napoleon revolutionized warfare – but without any particular technological breakthrough. Napoleon’s way of war reflected political change: the rise of nationalism. Clausewitz who turned the Napoleonic doctrine into a systematic military philosophy. |
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June 19 Tuesday afternoon THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR The Civil War was the first modern war. What were the technological innovations in guns and in logistics that made possible the invention of “total war”? What were the respective strategies of the North and South – how did they hope to win? What motivated the troops on both sides? |
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June 20 Wednesday morning COLONIAL WARS How come small groups of Europeans were able to conquer entire continents? |
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June 20 Wednesday afternoon THE FIRST WORLD WAR The First World War saw new technologies that brought maximum destruction to the battlefield and an unprecedented mobilization of resources on the Home Front: economic, human and cultural. What was it like to be a soldier in this war? |
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June 21 Thursday morning THE SECOND WORLD WAR What were the technological innovations that made ground combat in WW2 so different from WW1? Why were the Nazis so successful in conquering Europe? Why did they fail to defeat the Soviet Union? Could democracies persuade their citizens to fight in total war ? Was the Allied use of terror bombing morally justifiable? |
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June 21 Thursday afternoon VIETNAM Could the US have won the Vietnam war? How did it change the American way of waging war? |
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June 22 Friday morning THE NEW FACE OF WAR The military-technical revolution of the 1990s sees victory in the first Gulf War (1991), but then meets the realities of urban guerrilla warfare in the humanitarian interventions of the 1990s (Somlai, Bosnia, Kosovo) and the ongoing war in Iraq |
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June 22 Friday afternoon CONCLUDING THOUGHTS Is the era of inter-state warfare over? What re the social and psychological roots of the war phenomenon? How have changes in media technology affected the way Americans view war? How is the US military holding up to the strains of waging counter-insurgency wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? |
| Move and Documentary Clips |
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Henry V |
| Bibliography of Supplementary Reading |
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Primitive Warfare/General history Lawrence Keeley War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage Gender and War Joshua Goldstein War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System Medieval warfare Karl Friday Hired Swords: the Rise of Private Warrior Power in Japan Brian Downing The Military Revolution and Political Change The Napoleonic Wars David A. Bell The First Total War. Napoleon’s Europe and the Birth of Warfare Theorists of strategy Carl von Clausewitz On War The American Civil War James McPherson What They Fought For 1861-1865 Colonial Wars James O. Gump The Dust Rose Like Smoke: the Subjugation of the Zulu and the Sioux The First World War Samuel Hynes The Soldier’s Tale, chs. 1-3 Eliot Cohen & Military Misfortunes, ‘Catastrophic failure: the French Army in 1940,’197-230 Vietnam Bill McCloud What Should We Tell Our Children About Vietnam? The Military-Technical Revolution of the 1990s James Der Derian Virtuous War Memoirs: Analysis: New Wars Mary Kaldor New and Old Wars The US military today Richard Morin ‘Gen Y goes AWOL,’ Washington Post, April 8, 2001 Moral reflections on war Chris Hedges What Every Person Should Know About War |