War & Society

Kevin Adams, Kent State University

While military history has long been a subject of interest to professional historians, the expansion of the study of the military and war to include other aspects of history is a more recent development.  In this course, we will take advantage of this rapidly growing literature in order to assess the impact of war and the military upon the society, culture, politics, and economy of colonial America and the United States.  At the outset, it should be understood that this is not a course in military history and it is not comprehensive.  (Given the length of time covered in this course and the amount of scholarly material already in existence, such a goal would be impossible to achieve.)  Instead, we shall make episodic interventions into the history of the United States from the colonial period to the end of the Civil War, using the course lectures and readings to consider topics that are interesting, important, or undergoing historiographical revision.