War and Society In East Asia

While the transformation of traditional operational military history to the field more broadly known today as “war and society” might be roughly dated to the 1970s with respect to the study of the West, in East Asian circles it might be argued that the “war and society” approach was the norm from ancient times, as official histories dating from the second century BCE and earlier sought to put military affairs and warriors themselves within a broader social and political context. Thus, the study of battles themselves was often glossed over in favor of ruminations on the importance of good government or measures to “rescue the people from fire and water.” Later primary sources stressed the negative social ramifications of prolonged conflict and the need for restoring order. While descriptions of the horrors of war are rife in such sources, specific tactical details are often lacking. Upon their first serious academic exploration of East Asian (primarily Chinese) military topics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this often led Western scholars to wrongly conclude that these societies were in fact passive and/or unconcerned with military matters. In the era of high imperialism this dovetailed with notions of Social Darwinism to perpetuate the idea that such areas were ripe for the taking by more vigorous societies