Warfare and the Teaching of History

Abstract

ARTHUR SWEET, AFTER CONFRONTING THE REALITIES of trench warfare in World War I, lamented, Where were the glories of war, the heroic charges, the cavalry dashing through a rain of smoke and iron ... ; where indeed was the bird's-eye battle-scene which I had visualized from paintings and war books?' Sweet's experience is hardly unique. Thousands of soldiers have marched into combat (and even more have cheered them) with an enthusiasm and innocence that strains belief. Each generation, seemingly, falls prey to the fantasy that war is a glamorous, heroic adventure, only to be disillusioned by the brutal realities of the battlefield. We suffer a recurring collective amnesia with respect to war, an amnesia of no small consequence in an age of escalating international tension and daily talk of the possibilities of nuclear Armageddon. The situation is not getting any better. Only slightly more than a decade after the American withdrawal from Vietnam, the traumas of that war are being forgotten. The images of war that bombarded Americans in the late 1960s and early 1970s have been replaced by images that owe more to myth and fantasy than historical truth. War is increasingly glorified in our popular culture. Militaristic films have taken the nation's theaters by