I'm working towards a PhD in military history on a part time basis at one of the few schools in America that still even offer such a degree program. I think Prof. MacMillan's article is spot on. Even at a school with a military history program I have always gotten the distinct impression that it is considered a second class historical field. One of the military history professors even admitted that she wasn't really all that interested in military history, but rather it served as a useful avenue to get to social history through the back door. It seems inconceivable that war, which has had such an outsized effect on so many aspects of society for millennia, is so disregarded by so much of academia. I first studied history at the college level in the mid 1990s, and while it was bad then it appears that the decline in military history is accelerating. Perhaps I'm overstating it a bit, but I think the only prerequisite for national political leadership should be a firm grounding of military history. If you don't understand why conflicts begin, how they are fought, and, most importantly, how they end and in what manner is peace best secured than we should not be surprised when out political leaders struggle with those questions.
You'd think that people who want to prevent war would want to understand it. But no, we're seeing the same thing on the Left that we saw on the Right after 9/11: Don't know your enemy. Anything less than "They're evil, period, end of story" means you're siding with them.
I agree wholeheartedly, Wayne Karol. The idea of the bifurcated choice, war or peace, leaves out nuances and communications all through the middle which can epitomize the avoidance of an all-out war. Asian philosophies and martial arts teach these nuances much more, inserting philosophy into them, as well. America seems to love the either/or dichotomy or peace/war which actually inflames and creates conflict rather than lessens it.
We get into difficulties perhaps when the realty doesn't fit into the way we WANT to see the world, and the danger is that facts (that are always useful to us) are suppressed or discarded completely. We are embarrassed by war and the response often is to just forget about it. But as you argue that's not being real or getting the best from the ordeal (as hideous as it may have been at the time). We don't have go making wars in order to receive their benefits, of course. But wars, like the events of Corona and Donald that toss the balls into the air, just how they are then played, can make important differences.
That the tellers of history have biases is not ideal but they can be listened to knowing that -- and is surely better than no version at all.
In the context of an economics degree, I took several courses in history, including a military history seminar, a history of American diplomacy in the 20th century, and what at the time was the most popular course on campus: history of the Soviet Union. These courses helped me become a much more successful and useful applied microeconomist than would have otherwise been the case.
After a bout of deep reading on the WWII and its causes many years ago, the lessons of how to prevent another one seemed pretty clear to me. In brief, maintain military strength to deter and nip bad actors in the bud; engender economic cooperation and liberal democracies. Common sense stuff. The greatest lesson of the war was this: pacifism in the face of an aggressor leads to disastser. And yet, the Left at that time on up until today failed to learn these vital lessons. WWII was a capitalist war, they said. And war would become obselete if we simply adopted (insert the latest fashionable offshoot of Marxism here, currently the Woken.)
Nipping entire lines of academic research and inquiry in the bud is just the next logical step in this slippery, nay, scary slope, after protesting speakers and panels that don't sufficiently conform to the orthodoxy.
But this is hardly the first time these trends have reared their head, and they have usually been beaten back. Maybe history can give us reasons to hope? Or maybe this is just my dewy-eyed view as a grad student in Computer Science, a field where the centre still appears to hold.
Thank you, Margaret MacMillan. Your essay provides yet more information about what's lost in academia when scholars are essentially required to adhere to a particular conception of social justice. I agree with you that military history and other kinds of proscribed studies have a place in vibrant scholarly communities. And I see constant evidence that students are being shortchanged by ideological considerations. As you point out, these constraints and proscriptions aren't just a function of student preferences, though they are often that too. Responsibility goes all the way to the top of universities. Indeed, I've seen earnest statements such as those you cite constantly in recent years. I belong to a field and department in which this kind of prescriptive ideological discourse is manufactured, and I can confirm for any doubters that the language isn't just intended as window dressing. The goal is to drive scholars, fields, and disciplines out of business and assure that students aren't "harmed" by them.
I think statements like, “wars can bring unintended benefits,” are fraught because they imply that the benefits were available to everyone and the costs to buy those benefits were shouldered by everyone as well. Perhaps only some people had/have access to the benefits. Perhaps the costs were the burden of a subset of humanity. I think people fear a balancing of the scales that will neglect a hard and honest look at the costs of war and who pays those costs.
I'm working towards a PhD in military history on a part time basis at one of the few schools in America that still even offer such a degree program. I think Prof. MacMillan's article is spot on. Even at a school with a military history program I have always gotten the distinct impression that it is considered a second class historical field. One of the military history professors even admitted that she wasn't really all that interested in military history, but rather it served as a useful avenue to get to social history through the back door. It seems inconceivable that war, which has had such an outsized effect on so many aspects of society for millennia, is so disregarded by so much of academia. I first studied history at the college level in the mid 1990s, and while it was bad then it appears that the decline in military history is accelerating. Perhaps I'm overstating it a bit, but I think the only prerequisite for national political leadership should be a firm grounding of military history. If you don't understand why conflicts begin, how they are fought, and, most importantly, how they end and in what manner is peace best secured than we should not be surprised when out political leaders struggle with those questions.
You'd think that people who want to prevent war would want to understand it. But no, we're seeing the same thing on the Left that we saw on the Right after 9/11: Don't know your enemy. Anything less than "They're evil, period, end of story" means you're siding with them.
I agree wholeheartedly, Wayne Karol. The idea of the bifurcated choice, war or peace, leaves out nuances and communications all through the middle which can epitomize the avoidance of an all-out war. Asian philosophies and martial arts teach these nuances much more, inserting philosophy into them, as well. America seems to love the either/or dichotomy or peace/war which actually inflames and creates conflict rather than lessens it.
We get into difficulties perhaps when the realty doesn't fit into the way we WANT to see the world, and the danger is that facts (that are always useful to us) are suppressed or discarded completely. We are embarrassed by war and the response often is to just forget about it. But as you argue that's not being real or getting the best from the ordeal (as hideous as it may have been at the time). We don't have go making wars in order to receive their benefits, of course. But wars, like the events of Corona and Donald that toss the balls into the air, just how they are then played, can make important differences.
That the tellers of history have biases is not ideal but they can be listened to knowing that -- and is surely better than no version at all.
Many thanks Margaret MacMilan. Great article.
In the context of an economics degree, I took several courses in history, including a military history seminar, a history of American diplomacy in the 20th century, and what at the time was the most popular course on campus: history of the Soviet Union. These courses helped me become a much more successful and useful applied microeconomist than would have otherwise been the case.
After a bout of deep reading on the WWII and its causes many years ago, the lessons of how to prevent another one seemed pretty clear to me. In brief, maintain military strength to deter and nip bad actors in the bud; engender economic cooperation and liberal democracies. Common sense stuff. The greatest lesson of the war was this: pacifism in the face of an aggressor leads to disastser. And yet, the Left at that time on up until today failed to learn these vital lessons. WWII was a capitalist war, they said. And war would become obselete if we simply adopted (insert the latest fashionable offshoot of Marxism here, currently the Woken.)
I am a lover history and even more so of military history. Thank you for the article
Nipping entire lines of academic research and inquiry in the bud is just the next logical step in this slippery, nay, scary slope, after protesting speakers and panels that don't sufficiently conform to the orthodoxy.
But this is hardly the first time these trends have reared their head, and they have usually been beaten back. Maybe history can give us reasons to hope? Or maybe this is just my dewy-eyed view as a grad student in Computer Science, a field where the centre still appears to hold.
Thank you, Margaret MacMillan. Your essay provides yet more information about what's lost in academia when scholars are essentially required to adhere to a particular conception of social justice. I agree with you that military history and other kinds of proscribed studies have a place in vibrant scholarly communities. And I see constant evidence that students are being shortchanged by ideological considerations. As you point out, these constraints and proscriptions aren't just a function of student preferences, though they are often that too. Responsibility goes all the way to the top of universities. Indeed, I've seen earnest statements such as those you cite constantly in recent years. I belong to a field and department in which this kind of prescriptive ideological discourse is manufactured, and I can confirm for any doubters that the language isn't just intended as window dressing. The goal is to drive scholars, fields, and disciplines out of business and assure that students aren't "harmed" by them.
I think statements like, “wars can bring unintended benefits,” are fraught because they imply that the benefits were available to everyone and the costs to buy those benefits were shouldered by everyone as well. Perhaps only some people had/have access to the benefits. Perhaps the costs were the burden of a subset of humanity. I think people fear a balancing of the scales that will neglect a hard and honest look at the costs of war and who pays those costs.