War & SocietyPub Date : 2023-03-28DOI: 10.1080/07292473.2023.2178111
Xiaobing Li
{"title":"Chinese military history research in the past forty years","authors":"Xiaobing Li","doi":"10.1080/07292473.2023.2178111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07292473.2023.2178111","url":null,"abstract":"Western scholars agree that Chinese military history remains understudied, and the history of China’s warfare overlooked. Before the 1970s, specialisation in Chinese military history was absent in Western academia and was a relatively new phenomenon. Since the 1980s, the study of Chinese warfare in the West has evolved significantly. Some attribute this to heightened tensions during the Cold War. ‘If military history is to help us meet this crisis, surely it must take account of the Chinese experience in conducting warfare and also in avoiding it’. 1 In the 2000s, when China rose to world military power status, historians explored untapped sources and addressed important issues such as the Chinese way of war, its strategic culture, military modernisation, and asymmetrical warfare. This essay provides a brief survey of the study of Chinese military history in the West from the last forty years as well as addressing a few current issues in the field. Since it is impossible for this author to recount every aspect of English-language Chinese military historiography from 1982–2023, the essay highlights some changes, a few conceptualisations, recent research foci, source availability, and new efforts in case studies and social components in Chinese military history research.","PeriodicalId":43656,"journal":{"name":"War & Society","volume":"42 1","pages":"197 - 213"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45976073","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
War & SocietyPub Date : 2023-02-24DOI: 10.1080/07292473.2023.2178108
Peter Overlack
{"title":"The German Naval Intelligence Network in East Asia and Australia before the First World War","authors":"Peter Overlack","doi":"10.1080/07292473.2023.2178108","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07292473.2023.2178108","url":null,"abstract":"Some Australian historians still fail to acknowledge that the young Commonwealth faced an existential threat in the First World War. Such an assessment is untenable in the light of the evidence available in the German archives. The German Naval Intelligence System was central to the economic warfare planning of Germany’s East Asian Cruiser Squadron, which aimed to interdict raw material and food exports from Australia to Britain in the event of war and bombard port infrastructure. Australian defence capabilities and economic production were reported on, and assessed, at the highest levels in Berlin. This required the establishment of an intelligence gathering network managed by the various German consulates in Australasian cities who employed leading businessmen loyal to the German empire.","PeriodicalId":43656,"journal":{"name":"War & Society","volume":"42 1","pages":"157 - 177"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46539157","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
War & SocietyPub Date : 2023-02-15DOI: 10.1080/07292473.2023.2179171
A. Tzavaras
{"title":"Two Perceptions of Süleyman’s ‘Magnificent’ Navy during the Later Italian Wars","authors":"A. Tzavaras","doi":"10.1080/07292473.2023.2179171","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07292473.2023.2179171","url":null,"abstract":"Contemporary European perceptions of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent’s naval power inflated its actual strength. Using accounts of ambassadors and spies, this article juxtaposes the ‘fear of the Turk’ that captured Christian Europe’s imagination to the observation of the Ottoman navy. It will be argued that the sultan’s relationship with the North African corsairs and their judicious application of military power lent itself to exaggerated perceptions of Suleyman’s naval strength and his military reach.","PeriodicalId":43656,"journal":{"name":"War & Society","volume":"42 1","pages":"123 - 139"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41714431","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
War & SocietyPub Date : 2023-02-14DOI: 10.1080/07292473.2023.2178109
M. Samuels
{"title":"Operation Buckshot: Churchill’s Forgotten Offensive against Rommel, March-May 1942","authors":"M. Samuels","doi":"10.1080/07292473.2023.2178109","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07292473.2023.2178109","url":null,"abstract":"Although much has been written about the arguments between Churchill and Auchinleck over when Eighth Army should move over to the offensive in the spring of 1942, the plans for that offensive have been almost entirely overlooked in the literature. Drawing on the records in the archives, and on Auchinleck’s personal correspondence, reveals a planning process characterised by disagreements between the senior officers involved, a lack of urgency, and a flawed operational concept.","PeriodicalId":43656,"journal":{"name":"War & Society","volume":"42 1","pages":"178 - 196"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48066402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
War & SocietyPub Date : 2022-12-28DOI: 10.1080/07292473.2023.2150485
J. Beaumont
{"title":"Australian military historiography","authors":"J. Beaumont","doi":"10.1080/07292473.2023.2150485","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07292473.2023.2150485","url":null,"abstract":"Over the past century Australian historiography of war has ranged from strategy, command, battle and defence policy to the social, political, and cultural aspects of conflict. Historians themselves have mirrored this diversity. A gulf has often existed between chauvinistic popular history and the more critical scholarly research; while academic historians have been divided, between operational historians, who have eschewed theory in favour of narrative and empiricism, and social and cultural historians who have embraced successive waves of theoretical paradigms. The ‘greater’ historiography of the national experience of war would be enriched by a more active dialogue across these divides, as well as a deeper engagement with the economics and finance of war, and with the insights afforded by transnational history.","PeriodicalId":43656,"journal":{"name":"War & Society","volume":"42 1","pages":"99 - 121"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47947910","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
War & SocietyPub Date : 2022-12-13DOI: 10.1080/07292473.2023.2150468
P. Dennis
{"title":"The Founding of War & Society: A Personal Reminiscence","authors":"P. Dennis","doi":"10.1080/07292473.2023.2150468","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07292473.2023.2150468","url":null,"abstract":"Peter Dennis reflects on the founding and early years of War & Society.","PeriodicalId":43656,"journal":{"name":"War & Society","volume":"42 1","pages":"2 - 6"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47911557","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
War & SocietyPub Date : 2022-12-05DOI: 10.1080/07292473.2023.2150478
Frederick C. Schneid
{"title":"Master narratives in military history: Europe 1789 to 1900","authors":"Frederick C. Schneid","doi":"10.1080/07292473.2023.2150478","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07292473.2023.2150478","url":null,"abstract":"In the past 40 years, interpretations of European military history during the “long nineteenth century” (1789-1914) have retained much of their post-Second World War fascination with the Prusso-German military system. Moreover, British military history of the period continues to dominate Anglophone historiography. These Anglo-German master narratives need to be refocused on the larger European context. As a result, the military history of this era should equally integrate the wars of Empire and their impact on continental European armies. Finally, if scholars are to truly understand war in the Industrial Age, the obsession with technological determinism must be properly tempered. When contextualized, leadership – not technology – proved a more decisive factor in the outcome of European wars between the French Revolution and the First World War.","PeriodicalId":43656,"journal":{"name":"War & Society","volume":"42 1","pages":"44 - 51"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46140049","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
War & SocietyPub Date : 2022-12-05DOI: 10.1080/07292473.2023.2150480
Martin Thomas
{"title":"Grand Narratives: Decolonisation and Its Wars","authors":"Martin Thomas","doi":"10.1080/07292473.2023.2150480","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07292473.2023.2150480","url":null,"abstract":"As political scientist Tarak Barkawi has argued, studying wars of decolonization demands a readiness to decolonize previously Eurocentric approaches to war. To do that, we need first to think about how the study of violent decolonization has evolved over the past generation or so. This brief essay offers a few answers. It focuses on three issues: the recognition of decolonization’s wars, the place of unarmed civilians in such conflicts, and the inter-connection between violent decolonization and civil war.","PeriodicalId":43656,"journal":{"name":"War & Society","volume":"42 1","pages":"60 - 71"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44577019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
War & SocietyPub Date : 2022-12-05DOI: 10.1080/07292473.2023.2150471
Brian McAllister Linn
{"title":"Evolving Grand Narratives: A Forty-Year Perspective","authors":"Brian McAllister Linn","doi":"10.1080/07292473.2023.2150471","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/07292473.2023.2150471","url":null,"abstract":"Eminent historians reflect on the creation, evolution, and in some cases the destruction of the field of military history’s ‘grand narratives,’ ‘master narratives’, or ‘metanarratives’ over the past forty years in the following areas: race and the history of the modern US military; Asian military history; US military history; African military history: Europe 1789 to 1900; European history since 1914; wars of decolonisation; explanations of Confederate defeat; gender and war; and early modern European warfare.","PeriodicalId":43656,"journal":{"name":"War & Society","volume":"42 1","pages":"7 - 11"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2022-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49259672","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}