New Military History

There are three subfields of military history: the war and society, new military history, and traditional history. Neiberg follows the war and society, Bourke the new military history, and John Lynn, the only military historian of the three, is part of the traditional history group. Of the three, Lynn is the most persuasive, I will explain why later in this discussion. In Neiberg chapter he outlines each field of study and main interest: war and society and the new military history are closely linked and to sharing its influences, methodologies, and ideas. He further adds that traditional and the new military history study: strategy and operations (mostly traditional does this), how solders fight, recruitment, how they are maintained,

Instead they study “the rest of military history – that is fascination with the recruitment, training, and socialization of personnel, combat motivation, and the effects of service and war on the individual soldier, etc.” They take ideas and methodologies from the other sciences: “sociology, anthropology, economics, psychology and literature.” The issue I have with military history is their politics (bias) that is coming into play, which should not be part of military history. Bourke references Benjamin Cooling on his analysis of traditional military history: “admitted that the older type of military history ‘connotes traditional drum and trumpet operational history with heroic, often panegyric coverage of the past’. In contrast, new military history ‘may represent the liberal wing, while the drum and trumpet school upholds the conservative right of the line.” Keeping with the liberal way of thinking she adds: “The inner world of combatants remains at the heart of new military history, spawning a vast amount of research. There was a shift in emphasis from passive suffering to active killing. Humanity’s extraordinary gift for slaying each other was veiled in much traditional military history. Bourke goes on to add in her book “An Intimate History of Killing”: “The characteristic act distinctive of men at war is not dying, it is killing. For politicians, military strategists, and many historians, war may be about the conquest of territory or the struggle to recover a sense of national honour (sic) but, for the man on active service, warfare is concerned with the lawful killing of other people.