Kiernan V.G. European Empires from Conquest to Collapse, 1815-1960

Leicester University Press, 1982. — 284 p.The study of war has attracted, as it still attracts, the attentions of scholars of the finest kind. But such men were to be found, no doubt reluctantly, in company with a proportionately huge crowd of narrower-minded writers, for whom ‘military historian’ was the most complimentary title that could be found, military enthusiast or even war maniac often the more apposite. War and society studies began largely in reaction against that kind of stuff. Sometimes sinking to uniforms, badges and buttons, it rarely rose above campaigns and battles; it viewed them from the professional soldier’s angle; it tended to extract the fighting side of war from its total historical context; and it usually meant a view of an army, navy, or air force from within, little concerned about the nature of their connections with the society on whose behalf war was, nominally, being fought.