Bringing Together Social Histories

Abstract

It was bound to happen eventually. Since the 1960s, social history-including the study of race, class, gender, and ethnicity-has attained prominence as a vibrant field in the American historical profession. As all students of history already know, the widespread influence of social history can be seen at conferences, in the classroom, and in print. The methods and interpretations of social historians often creep into even traditional narratives. Average people and their everyday lives have become an essential part of the story of the past. What is less widely known throughout the profession is that a parallel transition has occurred within the field of military history. The late 1960s also introduced what would come to be known as the new military history-an attempt to go beyond traditional operational accounts of battles. Sometimes eschewing combat entirely, new military historians embraced a variety of methods to focus on military institutions, military thought, and civil-military relations. At the same time, others turned their attention to the men and women in uniform, and the results have been striking. Over the past thirty years, practitioners of military social history have explored the lives of everyday people in the military, in times of peace and war. This bottom-up approach has added depth to our understanding of the motivations, course, and effects of military service. More importantly, military social history has helped put a human face on war. What it has not done is make a real and lasting connection to the changes in the larger profession. For all their similarities-and with only a few exceptions, for example, Michael Sherry, In the Shadow of War (1995)-social history and military social history have grown up quite independent of one another. The result of this mutual ignorance is that military and social history often seem to be in opposition-two fields with nothing in common and little to learn from the other. All too often, sometimes even within departments, this opposition manifests itself in hostility or disdain.