Historiography

Today is the Day

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Well, today is the day my final theses class starts. I have already looked at the syllabus and am very curious how this is going to go. I have exactly 16 weeks to submit a proposal, get approval, write a draft, make revisions, and submit a final thesis for defense. I have been looking forward to this for at least 4 years and working towards it for the past 3. I guess I am both nervous and excited. Nervous because I am not quite sure if my proposal will be accepted without some major reworking and excited because I am getting ever closer to being done with college.   At … More after the Jump…

What is Military History?

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This is  probably a topic I should have tackled a few months when I started this blog; I have come to realize that i am in the minority when it comes to military history and my view of what it should be.   I guess the best way to describe myself is that I am a macro-historian and not a micro-historian.

What is Military History is a pretty good question from my perspective.   The definition determines how military history is written in the first place and to what uses it is put.   Modern military history arguably began with the reformers of the Prussian Army after 1805 and the creation of the Prussian staff system and most importantly the Prussian Kriegsakademie.   In its infancy, modern military history served a very simple purpose, to prepare military leaders for war by instructing them in the successes and failures of past military leaders.   The Kriegsakademie excelled at producing what would today be known as drums & trumpets type military history.  Â 

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Learning a Language

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I was thinking this morning about how important learning a second language is to good scholarship. It hit me because I was not required to learn a second language for my undergrad, I wish I had been. My chosen historical specialty is 18th & 19th century Prussian history. It is kind of hard to see how I could do any really good research without learning German and maybe French. Luckily, I am married to a German woman and had no choice but to learn German if I want to talk to any of my in-laws since most of them don’t speak a lick of English. How could I expect them too since they all live in Germany?
Learning German has stood me in good stead the longer I have been studying history and especially in conducting research for my thesis. I have made several trips to archives in Germany and Austria conducting research for my thesis and these trips would have been completely wasted with no knowledge of German. I probably would not have made them in the first place.

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Why Military History

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I ran across this piece by Jay Luvaas again today and it got me thinking about why I like Military history and if it is a worthwhile pursuit.   My short answer is that I don’t know why I like it and yes it is. The long answer is that I guess I like military history because war is the most extreme pursuit man engages in.   Extreme sports such as base jumping, free diving, mountain climbing, etc have nothing on the sheer rush and danger of engaging in the single most dangerous thing man has come up with; hunting our fellow man.   I have personally been to combat but … More after the Jump…

Dating Conventions

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I figured that here I would talk about dating conventions because I will eventually be posting about ancient and medieval battles as well. The question is A.D. & B.C. or C.E. & B.C.E.? The current convention says that C.E. & B.C.E standing for Common Era & Before Common Era are what we should use in modern scholarship.  The reasoning is that A.D. & B.C. are religious in nature and therefore exclusionary terms.  Sorry, I call bullshit on that.  A.D. & B.C. may be religious terms, I don’t dispute that, but they are also what people have been using for literally hundreds of years.  Trying to change dating conventions because of … More after the Jump…

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