War and Society

Catalog description

This course will examine the experience of war in its historical and contemporary significance. This course will examine war as a social phenomenon, emphasizing its impact on the battle front and the home front, on direct participants (combatants) and on those who are affected indirectly (civilians). We will examine the changing forms of warfare with the invention of increasingly destructive weapons; the impact on civilian communities as targets of war; the organization of the military as an institution (including recent debates about the racial and gender integration of the military and the All Volunteer Force).