Military history is a dynamic humanities discipline that can be defined simply as the history of the conduct of war and armed forces, and the impact these have had on culture, society, and economy, leading to changes in local and international relationships.
As a professional, one would focus more on the impact the major conflicts had on the society as well as the aftermath. However, as a hobby, one could also be interested in the details of the battles, equipment, or uniforms.
In its essence, military history’s focal point is more on exploring the elements that have caused the war, the social and cultural components involved, the tactics, technology, strategy and leadership as well as examining a moral or even ethical dimension—and how this changed over time.
As one would predict, this discipline started being studied at academies as an attempt to not fall into the same past mistakes and improve military performance. By doing so, commanders were thought to be able to draw parallels during battles in order to not capitalize on former errors.
However, as taken from the International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (H.F.A. Strachan, 2001), although the 19th century meant that soldiers and academics studied the history of war, “its institutional foundations were shallow” and furthermore, “soldiers rather than academics wrote the official histories of World War I (WWI)”.
This is a discipline that is constantly changing, the fact that it is largely due to social, political, and economic factors, as well as the frenetic pace of technological development. This can be observed during the Industrial Revolution, the nuclear age, and more recently—the digital age. Warfare is shaped by emerging technologies, with any invention having the ability to cause a rapid change.
From ancient military history to contemporary studies of international conflict, this field of study evolved into being a multidisciplinary effort, effort that, to the benefit of the researchers, is now considering starting to appear in online databases.
The Security Journal is providing an environment suitable for researchers and individuals interested in military history, the environment where one can find well-researched articles on military history, accurate data on the topics and high-quality delivery of the pieces.
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