The Many Faces of War and Peace
A Survey of War Throughout the Ages
Edited by Graham Wrightson, PhD, and Jerry W. Jones, PhD
DOI: 10.56686/9781966233008
ABOUT THE BOOK
An international group of contributors examine conflicts from ancient to modern times and in diverse places to illustrate that no matter how warfighting evolves and becomes more professionalized, the basic problems of preparing for war, prosecuting war, and securing the peace remain remarkably consistent through time. The military-industrial complex is evident across time as weapons evolved from spear and lance through the nuclear age. The evolution of military technology, cultural differences in training, and the critical role of logistics are all treated in this volume. War between tribes, kingdoms, empires, or grand coalitions will always involve civil society on both sides of a conflict, and history demonstrates that the economics of defense often determines the rise and fall of empires and great powers. Occupying armies often have to reckon with the violent resistance of civilians, and civilians have often paid a terrible price for their resistance. The plight of civilians, including women in wartime, is illustrated in tragic stories from Ancient Greek mythology to the depredations of mercenary armies in the High Middle Ages to German military reprisals against Italian civilians and Filippino guerrilla resistance in World War II. This collection of papers from the 2023 Faces of War conference illuminates the complex and timeless forces of war and peace from ancient times to the present. This volume contributes uniquely diverse perspectives on warfare across human history and finds that no matter how technology and human institutions evolve, the elements remain the same.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
Introduction: War throughout History
Graham Wrightson, PhD
Chapter 1. Jumping from the Cliff(s) during Times of War: The Case of Aglauros
Ioannis Mitsios, PhD
Chapter 2. Balance in the Phalanx Dance: The Importance of Dancing as Training for Maintaining Balance in Close-combat Warfare
Graham Wrightson, PhD
Chapter 3. Get to the Point: What Questions Should We Ask about a Spear?
Sean Manning, PhD
Chapter 4. Pyrrhus’s Imprint on Hannibal
Fernando López Sánchez, PhD
Chapter 5. “Now by Menaces, Now by Hope, All with the Threat of War”: Three Missions by Two Prominent Roman Ambassadors in the Unipolar World of the 160s BCE
Benjamin Scolnic, PhD
Chapter 6. Runaways Running Away: Strategies of Slave Flight and Revolt in Ancient Rome
Aaron L. Beek, PhD
Chapter 7. “Anime tribolate se potete, datevi in viaggio pace e buon piacere”: Traveling the Mercenary-infested Borderlands of the Holy Roman Empire and France, 1360–1370
Ölbei Tamás, PhD
Chapter 8. The British Quest of the Masculine in the Feminine Orient: Tracing the Development of Gurkha Recruitment and Discourse in the British Indian Army
Diptangshu Dutta Gupta
Chapter 9. Pierre Koenig as a Symbol of Free France’s War Aims
Benjamin F. Jones, PhD
Chapter 10. Civilians at War: The Italian Population in the Second World War, 1940–1943
Rocco Melegari, PhD
Chapter 11. The Wages of Unreadiness: The End of American Empire in the Southern Philippines in 1942
Jerry W. Jones, PhD
Chapter 12. Blacklisted: Guerrilla Responses to Local Collaborators in Negros Oriental, Philippines, during the Second World War
Justin Jose A. Bulado, PhD
Chapter 13. Naval-Capital Towns as the Center of the Military-Industrial Complex
Ryan C. Walker
Chapter 14. The Sun Never Sets: Defense, Economics, and the Fate of Modern Empires
Alexei (Frank) Hoffman, JD
Conclusion: War and Peace throughout Time
Graham Wrightson, PhD
Bibliography
About the Authors