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As a degree carrying "historian" I'd offer to you that there are 2 factors. 1) The way wars are fought has dramatically changed since WW2. Study of late-20th c

by huffmsa 11y ago

As a degree carrying "historian" I'd offer to you that there are 2 factors. 1) The way wars are fought has dramatically changed since WW2. Study of late-20th century warfare cannot be contained to "bullets, battles and biographies." Rather warfare has become intelligence and technology based, with the 3 B's only coming to play in breif flare-ups. The actors managing the new tech and intel tools are part of the intelligence community, who's main tenant is secrecy, meaning figuring out the who, what and why is that much harder to uncover. Then once you do, you need to be computer and infosys literate to understand what happened and how. This turns off a lot of people who can't manage reconciling the skills needed for pre-1950 history with post-1950 history. 2) Social and geopolitical climate has changes since 1950. 3Bs warfare is no longer accepted in the international community. Russia's annexation of Crimea is so shocking because territory has rarely been taken by force since the end of WW2. So while the United States has invaded many nations recently, the territory was not annexed like it would have been in the past. On a national scale, academia --and the officer corps of modern military -- are no longer the exclusive playgrounds of the first and second sons, respectively, of the wealthy/aristocratic families of a nation. TL;Dr New military history is dichotomous with old and academia is no longer dominated by people who have a vested interest in military history.

vacri 11y ago
Supporting your 1), it's a lot easier to read about stuff where your side had a clear victory. "Bob moved his units into position, they defeated Bill's units, Bob claimed the flag" is a clear victory story for Bobians, and set-piece battles are something they can visualise. "Bob's units moved off into the jungle, and they never really found the enemy, and never really won, and we didn't really understand why we were there in the first place" is a hard story to feel reflected glory from. I was told once that on the European continent, they're a bit puzzled over the Anglo obsession with WWII history. For the Anglos, it was almost a complete success story - a defensive war against a difficult (and demonic in hindsight) foe where we united unquestionably on the side of right and prevailed, and were never occupied. On the continent, the story was more about occupation, resistance, informants, people disappearing in the streets, secret police with frightening powers, so on and so forth. It was a much more painful experience, where people often couldn't even trust their neighbours they grew up alongside. And even after it ended, the continent was split in twain between two foreign superpowers bristling at each other. That kind of story is also hard to feel reflected glory from...
- PaulHoule 11y ago
  I think a lot of good stuff has been written about conflicts that were not so clearly victorious, such as the Vietnam war, "Black Hawk Down", the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan, the botched air-raid at dawn after the 1983 Beirut bombings, etc. (See "Supercarrier" by George C. Wilson) On top of that background the story of how the U.S. rebuilt the force in the 1970s-1990s time period is all the more interesting. (See "Mud Soldiers" by Wilson.) Serious military accounts of Gulf War I also reveal a lot you did not see on CNN at the time. And as you say, accounts of WWII from the perspective of the losing sides ("Japan's Imperial Conspiracy", "Adolph Hitler" by John Toland, etc.) are deeply interesting too. I am a yankee and no fan of the Confederacy, but the Civil War too takes on a lot more life when you understand the impact it had on the South.
- huffmsa 11y ago
  Your war on the continent statement actually brings up a 3rd factor to my initial two. Those secret police, insurgency, proxy army methods are more or less how the US has executed war post-WW2. And no one (well not many people) want to brag in their biography that "yeah, I was totally in charge of turning brother against brother and leveraging ideological differences to cause the [pick your nation] war of 19XX." It's dirty warfare, but in a world where you can't violate a nations sovereignty, annex their castle and force your will upon its people, there really aren't many alternative methods. Edit: typos
jessriedel 11y ago
> The way wars are fought has dramatically changed since WW2.... > This turns off a lot of people who can't manage reconciling the skills needed for pre-1950 history with post-1950 history... > Social and geopolitical climate has changes since 1950... But isn't there a substantial fraction of elite historians that study pre-WW2 history?
- huffmsa 11y ago
  There is, but whereas a government and its generals could legitimately learn lessons from studying ancient tactics, we don't have that kind of carry-over to the present day, so that kind of knowledge becomes pure academic interest. Insead, the CIA more or less lead the funded of creation of "mass communications studies" departments across the US in the 50s,60s, and 70s because it was research with applications to improve their abilities to engage in covert warfare.
  - jessriedel 11y ago
    > ...so that kind of knowledge becomes pure academic interest. I don't understand. We're talking about academia. Elite historians study the middle ages and the ancient dynasties of China. Is it obvious that these have more useful lessons than the Civil War?
    - huffmsa 11y ago
      Academia and "the arts" have never been solely about the collection of knowledge for knowledges sake. Generally academics and artist have had patrons of some form who pay for a specific project, which is used to subsidize the academic's other endeavors. History definitely falls under this umbrella, first with kings wanting their accomplishments recorded for posterity. Academic military history grew out of the practical need to study tactics. Since that need is much declined, so too are the universities offering course in the field. You still have your collection of purists who study for the sake of study, but the number who do it because they are seeking to apply it to current issues has decreased.
  - deleted 11y ago

by huffmsa 11y ago

vacri 11y ago

Supporting your 1), it's a lot easier to read about stuff where your side had a clear victory. "Bob moved his units into position, they defeated Bill's units, Bob claimed the flag" is a clear victory story for Bobians, and set-piece battles are something they can visualise. "Bob's units moved off into the jungle, and they never really found the enemy, and never really won, and we didn't really understand why we were there in the first place" is a hard story to feel reflected glory from. I was told once that on the European continent, they're a bit puzzled over the Anglo obsession with WWII history. For the Anglos, it was almost a complete success story - a defensive war against a difficult (and demonic in hindsight) foe where we united unquestionably on the side of right and prevailed, and were never occupied. On the continent, the story was more about occupation, resistance, informants, people disappearing in the streets, secret police with frightening powers, so on and so forth. It was a much more painful experience, where people often couldn't even trust their neighbours they grew up alongside. And even after it ended, the continent was split in twain between two foreign superpowers bristling at each other. That kind of story is also hard to feel reflected glory from...

PaulHoule 11y ago
I think a lot of good stuff has been written about conflicts that were not so clearly victorious, such as the Vietnam war, "Black Hawk Down", the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan, the botched air-raid at dawn after the 1983 Beirut bombings, etc. (See "Supercarrier" by George C. Wilson) On top of that background the story of how the U.S. rebuilt the force in the 1970s-1990s time period is all the more interesting. (See "Mud Soldiers" by Wilson.) Serious military accounts of Gulf War I also reveal a lot you did not see on CNN at the time. And as you say, accounts of WWII from the perspective of the losing sides ("Japan's Imperial Conspiracy", "Adolph Hitler" by John Toland, etc.) are deeply interesting too. I am a yankee and no fan of the Confederacy, but the Civil War too takes on a lot more life when you understand the impact it had on the South.
huffmsa 11y ago
Your war on the continent statement actually brings up a 3rd factor to my initial two. Those secret police, insurgency, proxy army methods are more or less how the US has executed war post-WW2. And no one (well not many people) want to brag in their biography that "yeah, I was totally in charge of turning brother against brother and leveraging ideological differences to cause the [pick your nation] war of 19XX." It's dirty warfare, but in a world where you can't violate a nations sovereignty, annex their castle and force your will upon its people, there really aren't many alternative methods. Edit: typos

jessriedel 11y ago

> The way wars are fought has dramatically changed since WW2.... > This turns off a lot of people who can't manage reconciling the skills needed for pre-1950 history with post-1950 history... > Social and geopolitical climate has changes since 1950... But isn't there a substantial fraction of elite historians that study pre-WW2 history?

huffmsa 11y ago
There is, but whereas a government and its generals could legitimately learn lessons from studying ancient tactics, we don't have that kind of carry-over to the present day, so that kind of knowledge becomes pure academic interest. Insead, the CIA more or less lead the funded of creation of "mass communications studies" departments across the US in the 50s,60s, and 70s because it was research with applications to improve their abilities to engage in covert warfare.
- jessriedel 11y ago
  > ...so that kind of knowledge becomes pure academic interest. I don't understand. We're talking about academia. Elite historians study the middle ages and the ancient dynasties of China. Is it obvious that these have more useful lessons than the Civil War?
  - huffmsa 11y ago
    Academia and "the arts" have never been solely about the collection of knowledge for knowledges sake. Generally academics and artist have had patrons of some form who pay for a specific project, which is used to subsidize the academic's other endeavors. History definitely falls under this umbrella, first with kings wanting their accomplishments recorded for posterity. Academic military history grew out of the practical need to study tactics. Since that need is much declined, so too are the universities offering course in the field. You still have your collection of purists who study for the sake of study, but the number who do it because they are seeking to apply it to current issues has decreased.
- deleted 11y ago