Steeped in Blood

[roseembolism]

I always wondered why classic historians focused so much on wars and the like. To my mind, social and technological shifts were at least as important, if not moreso. Then as part of a project, I got a partial list of the wars Europe has been involved in since the late 18th century:

American Revolution (1775-1783), French Revolution (1789-1792 or 1799), French Revolutionary Wars (1792-1797), Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815), War of 1812 (1812-1815), Spanish Revolution (1820), Greek War of Independence (1821-1829), Russo-Turkish War (1828-1829), Polish-Russian war (1830-1831), First Schleswig War (1848-1851), First Italian Independence War (1848–1849), Second Italian Independence War (1859), Third Italian Independence War (1866), Crimean War (1853-1856), Second Schleswig War (1864), Serbo-Bulgarian War (1865), Austro-Prussian War (1866), Ten Years' War (1868-1878), Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878), Cuban War of Independence/War of 1895 (1895-1898), Spanish-American War (1898), Greco-Turkish War (1897), Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901), Boer War (1899-1902), Italo-Turkish War (1911-1912), Balkan Wars (1912-1913), World War I (1914-1918), Russian Revolution (1917-1918), Finnish Civil War (1918), Polish–Ukrainian War (1918-1919), Estonian Liberation War (1918–1920), Czechoslovakia-Hungary War (1919-1920), Polish-Soviet War (1919-1921), Irish War of Independence (1922–1923), Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), World War II (1939-1945), Greek Civil War (1946-1949), Soviet invasion of Hungary (1956), Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968), Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988-1994), South Ossetia War (1991-1992), Georgian civil war (1991-1993), Croatian War of Independence (1991-1995), Abkhazia War (1992–1993), Bosnian War (1992-1995), First and Second Kosovo Wars (1996-1999), 2008 South Ossetia war.

Wow. I don't really wonder any more. I still think the social and technological developments are more important in the long run, but I can see why historians focus on t.he guns and swords part of history

Comments

[mithriltabby]

Social and technological developments are important factors (I trust you’ve read and/or watched James Burke’s Connections and The Day the Universe Changed?); economic factors can also be big (Niall Ferguson’s The Ascent of Money gives an interesting perspective).

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

I have indeed watched both Connections and The Day the Universe Changed- both of which are now on Youtube, IIRC. I'll have to check out Ascent of Money.

[ghilledhu.livejournal.com]

One could argue that many of the social and technological changes actually come about because of warfare. Certainly if you look at US history, particularly in the 20th century, much of our tech innovations came out of military research.

Sad and sobering, but there you have it.