Books On Military Sociology

New Directions In Military Sociology (March, 2005)
by Eric Ouellet (Editor)
Reviewer: John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV)
The military as we know it today has been around since at least the days of Alexander and the Greek phalanx. Yet at the same time the military is in a constant state of change. Since the end of conscription, the end of the Cold War, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union the militaries of the world have been in a state of rapid change. This change has been more apparent in the major countries of Europe and the United States than in many parts of the world such as the Middle East and Africa.
This book is on the military as a social organization. This encompasses both the relationship between the military and society, and the inside view of the social structure of the military institution itself. The book is a series of articles written by specialists in military sociology from around the world. Authors are from the US, Germany, England, Canada, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Russia and France.
Many different aspects of military life are addressed from the changes in communications with family at home (i.e. the impact of e-mail), to veterans affairs, the demands of a low (or zero) casualty rate, and more.

The Sociology of the Military (International Library of Critical Writings in Sociology, 11)
by Giuseppe Caforio (Editor)
P.K. Gautam, U.S.I. Journal
'This is one good compendium of military sociology . . . This book would be very useful for the committee members of the next pay commission, besides those interested in a psychological and militaristic analysis of the vast subject of military sociology - from the human to the economic and market trends.'

Killing Ground : The Civil War and the Changing American Landscape (Creating the North American Landscape) (April 1, 2002)
by John Huddleston
From Publishers Weekly
Of all the books this season that can be related to the 140th anniversary of Gettysburg this July, this may be the most immediate and provocative. It pairs 86 b&w photos of Gettysburg and many other Civil War sites, some taken just after fighting ended, with 77 color photos of the same sites taken (often on the same day of the year and at the same time of day) over the last few years, by photographer Huddleston. After growing up on the U.S. Army base at Fort Bragg, N.C., Huddleston went on to Yale, got an M.F.A. at San Francisco State, and now shows internationally and teaches at Middlebury College in Vermont. Most often his photos here show how agrarian battlefields have been silently incorporated into creeping suburbs: the battlefield near Ruff's Mill in Smyrna, Ga., is now overlooked by a generic strip mall featuring a dry cleaner, while the position of the Union Right, First Line, near Fort Sanders in Knoxville, Tenn., is now a parking lot crisscrossed with chain-link and concrete parking barriers. The battlefield at Wilson's Farm in Pleasant Hill, La., now holds hulking, rusting storage tanks. Without a trace of didacticism, Huddleston's photos, especially presented in juxtaposition with the past's open spaces, brilliantly testify to the ways in which history is literally forgotten, ignored or paved over. They are also beautiful.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
—Shelby Foote
"Killing Ground is a significant contribution, a new way of looking at highly familiar images."

The British Army in the West Indies: Society and the Military in the Revolutionary Age (Hardcover)
by Roger Norman Buckley

Obeying Orders: Atrocity, Military Discipline & the Law of War
by Mark Osiel, Mark J. Osiel
Reviewer: Frank (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas)
In this book, Mr. Osiel contends that the military should be more proactive in prosecuting soldiers for violations of the law of warfare. Osiel contends that current policy generally leads to litigation only in cases of atrocity. To his credit, the author recognizes the complexities of the modern battlefield and the "real-world" impact of imposing new or thicker layers of control within the chaos that is war. He also recognizes the complexities that peace-keeping and peace-making operations pose for soldiers and leaders at all levels. Professional soldiers will find some of his example cases distracting, as they are clear violations of the law without imposing his higher standard to the situation. This book should be recommended reading for all Judge Advocate General officers and field-grade commanders that are participating in combined (international) operations. This book should generate some good discussion among professional officers as they digest his proposals for increased responsibility at all levels of the command structure. Any instructor involved in teaching ethics, leadership, or the Law of War will also find this work helpful.

The Military and Militarism in Israeli Society (S U N Y Series in Israeli Studies) (Hardcover)
by Edna Lomsky-Feder (Editor), Eyal Ben-Ari (Editor)

The Military and Conflict Between Cultures: Soldiers at the Interface (Texas a & M University Military History Series) (Hardcover)
by James C. Bradford (Editor)
Reviewer: "timdavin" (Las Vegas, NV United States)
Editor James C. Bradford does the academic and professional military establishments a great service with the publication of this interesting and insightful collection of historical analysis of military establishments caught or placed between competing cultures. This is a work of serious academic style military history, there is very little of the popular ï¿½guns and trumpetsï¿½ material in the work. It will appeal primarily to those that seek to understand broader questions of military history, not the specifics of particular events.
The central idea binding the work together, albeit loosely at times, is that throughout history it has been soldiers, or warriors, operating on the respective boundaries of their cultures that have increased or decreased the friction between the cultures. Along the same lines, it is soldiers that sometimes are the primary determinants of how much of that friction is translated into violence. In the post-superpower world of the 1990s this is an interesting framework to hang a series of essays on military history upon. It almost guarantees the utility, intended or not, of the book for the professional soldier or defense interested civilian.
Bradford brings together nine historians for this book. Each is a specialist in their respective sub-fields of military history. The book is divided chronologically into ï¿½The Premodern era,ï¿½ and ï¿½Western Forces and Indigenous Peoples,ï¿½ and finally ï¿½Twentieth Century Cultural Perceptions.ï¿½ It is also initially divided along a thematic line, primarily focused upon the idea that if early military forces were in fact polyglot in content, then how could that military maintain any sort of unique cultural character? The essays in the first part, written by Dr. John Guilmartin of Ohio State and Dr. Dennis Showalter of Colorado College, explain how even in pre-modern military forces, the specialization of specific types of troops led to de facto segregation by function if not by organization. The second part of the book stays in the Western Hemisphere. American Western historian Robert M. Utley leads off by examining the nature of the conflict between American Indians and the U.S. Government. John W. Bailey deals with the schism between the intent of the American ï¿½civilizingï¿½ mission in the West, and the reality of some very uncivilized methods by looking at the different styles of the general officers at work on the Great Plains in the late 19th Century. Finally, in studying South America historian Richard W. Slatta finds that in Argentina there was a dual struggle going on. One was the cultural elite trying to gain control of their own populace, and the was second that larger group of Hispanics seeking to marginalize and eventually exterminate their own Native Americans. In the third section of the book Douglas Porch recounts the methods of the French used in northwest Africa while Carol Petillo looks at the effects of 50 years of Philippine involvement and itsï¿½ effects upon the professional U.S. military. The closing essay by Robin Higham deals with the topic of intercultural command.
We need look no further than the Balkans, or Somalia, or Chechnya to validate the importance of this book. We are without any doubt, entering a new era where limited war is not only the most probable, but where it is increasing likely to occur between groups with unique cultures. At a minimum, there will be soldiers at the interface between cultures even if they are not necessarily at war. A reflective reader may therefore draw several useful insights from history from this work. Although it is somewhat more expensive than the normal work of popular military history due to the fact that it is an academic work, the cost is made up by the depth of the material. In all essays the writing is clean and free of excessive specialized jargon, and in most cases the footnotes serve double duty by adding depth through supplemental explanation. I would heartily recommend this book to any serious military historian.

Breaking Ranks: Social Change in Military Communities (Hardcover)
by Christopher Jessup
Reviewer: "timdavin" (Las Vegas, NV United States)
The book claims that it will "explore the many social problems facing the armed forces today," and that it will further provide invaluable practical advice in helping the military understand and change in reaction to these "social problems." While the "explorations" sometimes stand on their own, the the "practical advice" leaves a lot to be desired. This is not a work that I would recommend to anyone.
Jessup teaches Social Policy in the Continuing Education Department of Bristol University, England. He has also run training courses in social welfare for the British military in various assignments around the globe. These experiences, as well as several decades-old sociological studies of the armed forces of the United Kingdom and the United States, are the basis from which Jessup draws his material. This narrow knowledge base is insufficient given the scope of what he attempts.
Admittedly, Jessup's central topic, the changing nature of the military family in relation to the military itself, is an interesting one worthy of study. Some chapters are interesting and well structured. His analysis of shifting demographics in the United Kingdom and the United States as it relates to recruitment of servicemember retention is worthwhile. The observations he makes on the developing personal career expectations of military spouses and how they may affect the military is also of value. It appears that Jessup is at his best when he offers generalized observations and supports this with demographic studies. However, when he begins to put forward his "solutions" to what he perceives as impending problems for the military he steps off secure ground and flounders in the deep water of unsupportable speculation.
Part of the problem lies in the fact that Jessup actually offers very little in the way of concrete solutions. Most chapters average twenty pages in length. In each he identifies a what he believes to be a developing problem or issue. Unfortunately, he generally concludes with a mere page to a page and a half of actual advice. Given the somewhat simplistic nature of the advice that he puts forward one would expect a much more clearly stated and rigourously defended style. Extremely complex social issues such as the open service of homosexuals in the military cannot be effectively addressed with a terse paragraph or two. Jessup tries this method and fails.
Further decreasing the possible value of this study is the stretch that Jessup attempts in order to increase his potential audience. While Jessup may be fairly well versed in the culture and workings of the British military and the larger society from which it springs, he is decidedly less so for the United States. His attempts to make cross-cultural comparisons are weak at best, and misleding at worst. Exacerbating this error is the fact that he lumps all military forces together in a monolithic block, totally ignoring the fact that in both the UK and the US each of the various branches of the military appear to have unique sub-cultural values of their own. None of this seems to matter to Jessup, to whom all people in uniform are "military" and therefore they think and act in more or less the same way.
Perhaps the most damning aspects of the book are the major and unsupportable assumptions that Jessup makes with regard to how the military forces of the UK and US relate to the broader culture of their own nations. Jessup asserts that the military forces of both nations are on a collision course with reality if they do not change their attitudes and behaviors to place them more in synch with their parent nations' cultures. He makes the assumption that because the military forces of both nations have, for long periods of time, been geographically seperated from the "home country" the militaries have developed cultures that are anachronistic and out of touch with the parent society. This is the root of his entire thesis, and it is false.
Further, by assuming that the military members exist insome sort of "splendid isolation" he ignores the fact that by far the majority of the military forces of both nations are stationed inside the national borders of their countries, and in most cases, inside major metropolitan regions, if not areas. They operate within and at the behest of our nation, not as some sort of mercenary force but as the instrument of the people, for the people. Finally, in this age of global communications and the internet, any idea that they are isolated to the degree he assumes cannot stand on its own.
There are several issues and ideas in this book that deserve a complete study in their own right. Perhaps that might be the best way to summarize the problems of Breaking Ranks, it contains concepts that might fill six books if each were developed adequately but the author tries too hard to force them into one. One hopes that another observer might take up the challenge in the future and create a study of some of the specific issues raised by Jessup and delve into them in detail. Jessop glances off the topics and in the end he fails to convince the reader of the validity of any of his recommendations.

Handbook of the Sociology of the Military (Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research) (Jan, 2003)
by Giuseppe Caforio (Editor)
Never before has there been so extensive a collection of what has been thought, said, and written about the sociology of the military. This accessible handbook is the first of its kind to delve into the sociological approach to the study of the military. This book is compiled of documents coming from various researchers at universities around the world as well as military officers devoted to the sector of study. Covered in this volume is a historical excursus of studies prior to contemporary research, interpretive models and theoretical approaches developed specifically for this topic, civic-military relations including issues surrounding democratic control of the armed forces, military culture, professional training, conditions and problems of minorities in the armed forces, an examination of the structural change within the military over the years including new duties and functions following the Cold War.
This book is ideal for scholars of the subject as well as those coming to the sociology of the military for the first time.

This ambitious compilation is a much-needed general, but thorough, overview of military sociology from the time it emerges as a specific subdiscipline in the 1940s. For this, the volume deserves immediate praise. The handbook's excellent summary of social thought frames major classical and contemporary debates by careful selection of recent scholarship. The contributors, from several countries, study issues from various national and international contexts, and their works are commendably interdisciplinary.

The editor's own work dominates the introductory selections. His chapter on the emergence of military sociology is a truly remarkable synopsis. For example, he effectively traces dominant themes emerging from the American School - such as the Huntington and Janowitz divergence/convergence debate - to the seminal influences of classical theorists before bringing the readers up to date on recent research under this heading. From his own cross-national survey of researchers in the field, Caforio reports a general crisis in theory relative to "practical" empirical studies favored by research groups outside academia (and sometimes sponsored by governments or their militaries). Perhaps in response, the works in this volume are thoroughly grounded in theory, and a large section of the book is devoted to theoretical models. Most notable among these is James Burk's "Military Mobilization in Modern Western Societies," which uses a synthesis of several change theories to explain the likely consequences of the international trend away from mass armies and toward volunteer ones.

Another large section devoted to civil-military relations features two articles about how evolving military structures affect military families and includes Hans Born's suggestions for new, post-Cold War frameworks to study ongoing concerns about democratic control of armed forces. Noteworthy here is Bernard Boene's criticism of the popular notion that rapid technological innovations largely explain structural changes. He claims that today's organizational trends - networks of smaller units with flatter hierarchies, decentralized decision making, an increasing capacity to tolerate ambiguities, and permeable boundaries - follow from postmodern, ideological shifts that dismantle an overarching, universally valid, and socially meaningful vision of the military.

Concerning military culture, the increasing participation of women among armed forces is a subject of wide interest. Marina Nuciari notes, in one of the better articles, that this trend is necessarily consistent with others: that is, the transition to volunteer forces and force downsizing, the need for technological expertise, and new"nonconventional" or "humanitarian" missions. Other works concentrate on the conversion or restructuring of the military. Significant trends include a need for "constabulary forces" that respond quickly to flash conflicts (Manigart), finding new functions for "downsized" military forces as civilian employees occupy a larger role in military operations (Jelusic), factors encouraging more flexible and collaborative multinational missions (Dandecker), and the global evolution of the perceptions and identities of soldiers themselves as "humanitarian peacekeepers" (Kummel). Caforio appropriately concludes the volume with concise summaries of these trends and suggests some larger implications from the whole to guide the next round of scholarship. One important structural change not adequately covered in this volume is represented by P.W. Singer's Corporate Warriors, which documents the dramatic increase in the "outsourcing" of traditional military functions to private, capitalist enterprises.

A few comments on the reference value of this handbook may be useful. Readers are thoughtfully directed to earlier bibliographies to complement an extensive list of references (although I found it less convenient that all these were piled into one section at the end rather than at the conclusion of each piece). Some sociologists might note that more often than not references come from outside their field. Caforio makes a strong case for sociology as "the most sound and complete scientific approach to the study of the military" but argues that the field is rightfully interdisciplinary, preparing readers for research dominated by approaches from related fields (particularly political science, cultural anthropology, and social psychology). He justifies this tack using a quote from Kummel's chapter: "The reason for trans-/interdisciplinarity lies in the simple truth that the military is a highly complex social phenomenon . . . that cuts through various levels, touches several different contexts, and is thus subject to multiple processes of interpretation." Most sociologists will likely appreciate the interdisciplinary nature of this volume; others should not expect, despite its title, that the majority of the selections are the product of interdisciplinary sociologists sitting in departments of sociology. Many of the authors are affiliated with military institutes (four contributors from the Royal Netherlands Military Academy alone) and disciplinary affiliations are left unclear. Scholars tired of international compilations dominated by U.S. studies will find this volume refreshing, as most contributors are European and tend to use the U.S. as a comparative case. Also, perhaps to counter the "theoretical crisis" suggested by the editor, the selections decidedly favor qualitative over quantitative models.

This volume is a valuable addition, long needed by those interested in the military as a sociocultural phenomenon. It should prove useful to neophytes and seasoned practitioners alike. The selections are of high quality, well represent the primary lines of research within the field, and offer implications that could not be more timely. Consistent with the argument that sociologists should draw widely from numerous fields, we may anticipate that future research will be "meta-disciplinary" as well - that is, will incorporate the systematic observations of war correspondents, journalists, refugees, and others outside academia and established think tanks. Sometimes these observers on the ground offer the freshest hypotheses and insights.
Reviewer: BRADLEY BULLOCK, Randolph-Macon Woman's College
Copyright University of North Carolina Press Mar 2004.

A Question of Loyalty: Military Manpower Policy in Multiethnic States (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs) by Alon Peled
States that use military conscription and whose ethnic minorities have relatives in hostile countries face a "Trojan horse" dilemma: the state demands military service but mistrusts the loyalty of subjugated community members. Some armies brutalize ethnic recruits; others simply reject them. Alon Peled compares the experiences of Malay-Muslim soldiers in Singapore, Arabs in Israel, and blacks in South Africa. Drawing on his interviews with senior officers and policymakers, he examines the histories of these armies and their levels of ethnic integration. He also suggests how minority soldiers can be gradually recruited, integrated, and promoted.
Ethnic soldiers can only succeed, Peled argues, when officers formulate manpower policy on the basis of combat needs rather than political concerns. Peled highlights the behind-the-scenes roles played by officers and ethnic leaders. He advocates new policies for change, recommending that the leaders of ethnically torn countries such as the republics of the former Soviet Union and states in central Africa allow professional officers to introduce soldiers from mistrusted ethnic groups through a process of phased integration.

Army, Industry and Labour in Germany, 1914-1918 (Legacy of the Great War) (October 15, 2004)
by Gerald Feldman
This innovative study by one of the leading specialists in the field examines the social and economic role of the German army in the nation's internal affairs during World War I.
Gerald Feldman is a Professor of History, at the University of California, Berkeley.

War and Society in 20th Century France by Michael Scriven (Editor), Peter Wagstaff (Editor)
Presents a vivid picture of the various ways in which the French people experienced war: resistance and collaboration, the colonial wars, the military and the state, the military-industrial complex, war propaganda, and literary and cultural representations of war.

The Martial Metropolis : U.S. Cities in War and Peace (Hardcover)
by Roger W. Lotchin (Editor)
Review
“Historians have viewed the process of urbanization as a dependent variable; city-building, that is, derived from the interplay of demographic, regional economic and social-political forces. In The Martial Metropolis editor Roger Lotchin assembled a group of essays which, he tells us, treat the city and urbanization as independent variables.... Lotchin strongly emphasized the city and the sword concept as the thematic underpinning for this excellent collection of essays.... It is my conclusion that Roger Lotchin should be applauded for editing an important collection of well written, scholarly, and readable essays dealing with an issue that historians and other social scientists increasingly view as critical to the shaping of modern urban America.”–Planning Perspectives
Covers the period between the end of World War I and the escalation of the Vietnam conflict, during which both U.S. cities and the U.S. military came of age. The cities chosen have had longstanding and broad partnerships with the military. Each city is either broadly representative or typical of some part of the partnership and provides coverage for different services, kinds of cities, and geographic locations.

Beyond Zero Tolerance (Hardcover)
by Mary Fainsod Katzenstein
The U.S. military has an exemplary set of rules governing both race relations and gender discrimination, and yet it has experienced repeated sex scandals and long-lingering racial tensions. This book takes on that paradox and critically examines the reasons underlying it.
Mary Fainsod Katzenstein is professor of government at Cornell University. Judith Reppy is professor of science and technology studies in the Peace Studies Program at Cornell University.

Sex Among Allies (Hardcover)
by Katharine H. S. Moon
The U.S.Korea Review
Drawing on a vast array of dataarchival materials, interviews with officials, social workers, and the candid revelations of sex industry workersMoon explores the way in which the bodies of Korean prostituteswhere, when, and how they worked and livedwere used by the US and the Korean governments in their security agreements. . . .marginalized and made invisible in militarily dependent societies.
J. Ann Tickner
In a carefully researched study of U.S. military prostitution in Korea, Moon validates Cynthia Enloe's claim that the personal is international. These moving stories tell how the lives of Korean prostitutes in the 1970s served as nearly invisible instruments of U.S.-Korean military policies at the highest level. Moon's innovative case study demonstrates how a Cold War alliance was maintained at the price of these women's personal insecurity and challenges us to reconsider the human costs of international security policies.

Army of Hope, Army of Alienation: Culture and Contradiction in the American Army Communities of Cold War Germany (May 30, 2001)
by John P. Hawkins
Review
“This is a novel contribution to the fields of anthropology and sociology, but it also contains important lessons for the American military....Academic collections.”–Choice
This ethnography describes the intense contradictions that exist between the cultural values of American life and the cultural values needed to survive in combat, as represented through the experiences of forward-deployed U.S. Army units in Germany during the height of the Cold War. Living in constant military readiness, yet participating in peacetime community and family processes, Army personnel had to tolerate the contradictions and live by both sets of principles. In soldier perception, family life and community activities ought to have been guided by American rather than military values. Yet the military ran the community, and military activities penetrated and disrupted family life.

War and Society in Europe 1870-1970 (War and European Society) by Brian Bond
Spanning a century of warfare in Europe, this bold study shows how war and preparations for war have exerted a tremendous influence on European society since 1870 and how, in turn, civilian society significantly shaped the nature of armed conflict. Written in clear, lively prose, this book sheds new light on European history during one hundred eventful years.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
This survey by a leading military historian shows how war has exerted an enormous influence on European society since 1870, and how in turn civilian society has played a major role in transforming the nature of armed conflict.

Military System and Social Life in Old Regime Prussia, 1713-1807: The Beginnings of the Social Militarization of Prusso-German Society (Studies in German Histories) (Hardcover)
by Otto Busch, John G. Gagliardo (Translator)

World Military Leaders (Hardcover)
by Mostafa Rejai, Kay Phillips
Focusing on 45 military leaders from four continents and 13 countries, spread across four centuries, this study paints, for the first time, a collective, comparative portrait of high-ranking military officers. The authors develop an interactional theory of military leaders, stressing the interplay between sociodemographic variables, psychological dynamics, and situational factors. They examine age and birthplace, socioeconomic status, family life, ethnicity and religion, education and occupation, activities and experiences, and ideologies and attitudes. They find military leaders to be a remarkably coherent and homogeneous group of men propelled toward the military by a combination of nationalism, imperialism, relative deprivation, love deprivation, marginality, and vanity.
MOSTAFA REJAI is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Miami University, Ohio, where he has .also been the recipient of an Outstanding Teaching Award. KAY PHILLIPS is Professer of Sociology and Anthropology at Miami University, Ohio.

The Tainted War : Culture and Identity in Vietnam War Narratives (Contributions in Military Studies)
by Lloyd B. Lewis
"Using 19 accounts by enlisted men and company-grade officers, Lewis concludes that American culture failed to prepare its young men for the reality of the war in Vietnam. According to Lewis, American males had accepted ideas, based on their fathers' W.W. II experiences, that wars pit virtue against evil in clearly defined battlefield situations with individual actions modeled on John Waynes's movie heroics. But the Vietnam War was unlike any war fought by this generation's fathers. Lewis's perceptive study in the sociology of knowledge offers many original insights into the Vietnam War. College and universtiy libraries."

The Adaptive Military: Armed Forces in a Turbulent World, Second Edition
by James Burk (Editor)
Burk does an above average job identifying the new military security policies and practices that are becoming necessary in the post-Cold War military. This book is a synthesis of several articles, each written by distinguished military sociologist and public policy analyists. I recommend this book to the avid reader who wants to explore public policy from a sociological approach.