Military History: What Do We Need to Know?
So this year in World History I decided to go with a combined thematic/chronological structure. I organized the whole year around the theme of power, and then split it into five units:
- Defining Power: Who Has It Today, and how Do They Use it?
- History of Military Power
- History of Economic Power
- History of Cultural Power
- History of Political Power
Right now I’m about 2/3 through the Military Power unit, and it’s given me cause to think about what, precisely, I think a contemporary citizen needs to know about military history. I’m trying to stay away from specific battles and dates. I know a lot of them, and I have to look a bunch more of them up. But when I look at the world today I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about Antietam or the Battle of New Orleans or even things like Lexington and Concord. I think about general themes, lessons learned, bridges burned, and so on. So here’s what I’ve been talking to the kids about, or what I plan to talk about:
- Greek/Persian War: To discuss the roles of the citizen soldier (hoplites) and naval power.
- Punic Wars: To introduce how Rome gained so much territory, and to help set up the discussion of Rome’s transformation in the cultural and political units to come.
- Castles and Medieval Warfare: To help students think about the relationship between military and economic power and to set up certain technological transformations.
- Gunpowder and the Chinese: To continue the theme of technological innovation in war and to discuss what was going on in Asia.
- Samurai in Japan and the Tokugawa Shogunate: To further develop the thread on gunpowder/technology.
- Ottoman Empire: Still working on this, but I wanted to start moving from the East toward the West and help students visualize the territory of Southwest Asia, Eastern Europe, and North Africa.
- Spanish Conquests: To introduce the age of colonialization, to conclude the thread on gunpowder by showing a conflict in which one side has it and another doesn’t.
- Rebellions: Rebellions in India, Haiti, U.S., Mexico help establish the era of European empires and the tactics they used. (This is where I am now.)
- Alliances and World War I: To discuss how diplomacy can set the stage for war and introduce modern trench warfare.
- World War II: To show the blitzkrieg as a response to trench warfare, introduce the importance of air power, the scale of global conflict, and atomic weaponry.
- Cold War: To show the effect of atomic technology on the major powers, changing the nature of conflict between powers.
- Terrorism and Modern War: To return to the present and sum up how the preceding events brought us to where we are.
I’m still working some of this out – I want to incorporate more on the western African empires like the Mali and Songhai, for example. But I think there’s a couple of decent narrative arcs here to help students think through things, and opportunities to discuss the nature of war and conflict. For example, i find that my ninth graders are often very surprised by the idea of rules of engagement, international law and the Geneva Conventions. Talking about hoplites and samurai helps introduce that idea that warriors did not always think in terms of total war, and allows us to bring that conversation forward to the present. I think that’s the kind of military history that helps ground modern citizenship, but I know there’ still work to do on pulling the threads together – and finding some threads I missed.
To that end, I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments, on Twitter, or elsewhere.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.