“Military Histories Old and New: A Reintroduction,” published in 2007 by Robert M. Citino, discusses the schisms in the field and the various interpretations of how to study it. The author views military history in terms of three camps and argues that military history has become “a big tent” (1072) and that historians are divided on how to approach the study of military history, as shown by the “old”, which focuses on battles and leaders, the “new”, which focuses on “the interface between war and society” (1072), and a more recent field that applies the “history of memory and culture to the study of military affairs in their broadest sense” (1072).
Citino claims that military history was declining as a relevant field of study in the current era by showing that over time, the field is decreasing in popularity at elite institutions, despite its prevalence in popular media, particularly television. He writes that military history is estranged from the history discipline, with “a prejudice against military history among many historians,… But military historians need to become less resistant to contemporary trends in research – from social history to postmodernism to the new cultural history” (1089). The estrangement may be caused by many historians’ failure to connect other subjects to military history beyond battles and leaders and thus their perception of military history as nothing more than that.
Judging by the apparent lack of jargon in the article, one can argue that Citino is trying to convince the non-military historians that military history is more nuanced and complex than just leaders and battles. Some major historiographical issues that Citino addresses are the realities for African Americans serving in the Army and Navy during the mid-nineteenth century and the tendency of historians to designate the Holocaust as a central event of the Second World War. In the first issue there are the works of Donald R. Shaffer and Steven J. Ramold: After the Glory: The Struggles of Black Civil War Veterans (2004) and Slaves, Sailors, and Citizens: African Americans in the Union Navy (2002) respectively. The two scholarly works depict two very different realities for African Americans serving in the armed forces before, during, and after the Civil War. Shaffer’s After the Glory depicts the struggles of African Americans not only for the right to fight but for the right to be remembered by history for trying to do so. Ramold’s Slaves, Sailors, and Citizens depicts “a more positive example of racial integration within the military” (1075). This shows that race relations played a significant role in military history. In the second issue, the works of Alexander B. Rossino, Edward B. Westermann, and Geoffrey P. Megargee call the notion of the Holocaust as a central event in the Second World War into question. For example, Megargee’s War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941 (2005) gives readers up-front proof that German operations were intimately linked with Nazi racial policy, showing that the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis were only a part of why the Germans went to war, which was mainly for resources.
Citino uses scholarly sources written by other historians of his caliber, such as Jeremy Black, Emily S. Rosenberg, and Dennis E. Showalter, coming from different camps of military history. Showalter, of the “old” persuasion of military history, through works such as Railroads and Rifles: Soldiers, Technology, and the Unification of Germany (1976), reminds readers of “the importance of studying the “primary function” of armies, which was, after all, to fight,” alluding to Moyar and his article on the study of military history. Citino believes that by gearing it towards the general reader, he can stir up new interest in people to study military history. The language used in the article largely consists of words that are familiar to most young adult to adult readers and though the piece’s twenty pages can be overwhelming to a member of the general reading public, it is still well-understood with minimal effort on the part of any reader, layman or scholar, which is good, as it increases readership from all backgrounds.
Citino, Robert M. “Military Histories Old and New: A Reintroduction.” The American Historical Review 112, no. 4 (October 2007): 1070–90. https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr.112.4.1070. I Pledge that I have neither given nor received any unauthorized help on this assignment.
