STUDYING THE CAUSES, CONDUCT, AND CONSEQUENCES OF WAR: THE SOCIETY FOR MILITARY HISTORY

Abstract

Air War College (Montgomery, AL) Жаклин Е. Уитт Военно-воздушный колледж (Монтгомери, шт. Алабама) ИЗУЧАЯ ПРИЧИНЫ, ХОД И ПОСЛЕДСТВИЯ ВОЙН: ОБЩЕСТВО ВОЕННОЙ ИСТОРИИ The Society for Military History (SMH) is an international scholarly society dedicated to advancing the study of military history. It was founded in 1933 and today boasts more than 2600 members, including academics, soldiers, and independent researchers who are interested in military histo-ry. While most of the Society‘s members are based in the United States, there is a growing contingent of international scholars, and increasing the presence of international scholars has been a consistent focus in the past few years. Importantly, the Society defines its mission broadly, and this broad mission is reflected in both its membership and the topics on which members conduct research. Bound by neither chronology nor geography, the Society is linked by its topical devotion to the study of wars, warfare, militaries, and societies. The 2013 Annual Meeting was held in New Orleans, Louisiana, from March 14 -17, 2013, on the theme of ―War, Society, and Remembrance‖ and was hosted by the Center for the Study of War & Society at the Uni-versity of Southern Mississippi with the National World War II Museum and Southeastern Louisiana University. The conference program included more than 64 panels, with more than 250 individual presenters and com-menters. Professor Joseph Glatthaar of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) delivered the Society‘s presidential and keynote address. In recent years, the SMH has worked actively to engage a range of historical fields related to the study of war by highlighting presidential panels and roundtables that are cosponsored by other academic societies. The 2013 conference lineup included four such panels: ―The Convergence of Military and Environmental History‖ with the American Society for Envi-ronmental History; ―Perspectives on the Cold War in Europe and the Pacif-ic‖ with the US Commission on Military History; ―Revolutionary War and Diplomacy in the Third World‖ with the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations; and ―War and Medicine‖ with the American Association forthe History of Medicine. Each of these panels offered attendees the