Introduction

Expanding perspectives on military history followed the advent of social, feminist, Marxist, the Annales, postmodern, and other conceptual frameworks in the mid-twentieth century, albeit sometimes a decade or more after they had gained footholds in the academy as a whole. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent sections of this book. The book presents essays that demonstrate the ideas and conceptual frameworks that scholars of war and society have employed to explore various historical topics and themes-emphasizing those that have been prominent or emerged since the last decades of the twentieth century. It contains two broad sections. The first addresses distinct geographical regions. The second section includes essays that focus on particular methodologies and frameworks used within the war and society field. A number of these have been prominent within the broader academic discipline of history for some time.