American Military History

Ingo Trauschweizer, Ohio University

This course will provide an interpretive survey and discussion of American military history from colonial beginnings in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to the present. It considers the role and significance of war in American history and asks whether these past wars could tell us anything about the challenges of the twenty-first century. The format of a survey may not allow us to pursue every significant and interesting topic in great detail. Instead, main emphasis will be placed on several specific themes. These include the relationship of state and society, organization of military institutions in colonial North America and in the United States, and strategy and policy. That means that we will spend less time on battles and generals than on technology, logistics, administration, and sociology.