When you tell someone that you are reading for a degree in War Studies you get, more or less, one of two reactions: the assumption that it is a 'doss' degree, higher education's answer to the Sociology A Level, or the assumption that you must somehow be an inherently violent type to actively wish to study such a horrific occurrence. Sometimes you get both reactions. Very, very occasionally you'll come across someone who actually knows what they are talking about and you'll get an enthusiastic and positive response.
It seems to be something you have to get used to, certainly, it is not just the little BA students who fall prey to these attitudes. Ask any member of the department- right up to the lofty professorial levels- and they will immediately empathize with you.
The latter reaction is more obviously and immediately illogical and close-minded. War is a continuing and extraordinarily influential social phenomenon, an interest in it surely betrays not a hidden violent streak but an acknowledgement and awareness of its importance in shaping society and a recognition of the role it has played and continued to play in the workings of the world.
There are historians who specialise in studying the Holocaust and doctors who dedicate their lives to the study of all sorts of maladies and yet their academic interests, awful, violent, cruel and horrifying though they may be, are deemed not only acceptable but laudable. 'Don't mention the war' seems to have turned into: 'Don't mention any war, ever!' It may not be a particularly cheerful topic but adopting the ostrich technique isn't beneficial, war plays far too significant a role for us to hope that it will go away by itself if we ignore it for long enough.
In his closing remarks after Howard's lecture, Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman thanked him for showing that: 'a humane study of war is possible.' War may be appalling, but that doesn't mean that the act of studying it is!
As for the first reaction, well, that is equally close-minded but reflects a commonly held view in certain circles. One of our lecturers told us in our very first lecture of the degree that at a conference he had been at not long ago an eminent historian said: 'Finally, finally it's starting to be accepted that one can be a mature, well adjusted, adult human being being with an interest in war.' What he meant, translated the lecturer, was that: 'Military history is no longer seen solely as the preserve of teenagers talking about tanks and guns whilst rolling dice in an effort to take over the world.' I think it quite unlikely that I was the only one in the room smirking slightly at the memory of only a few nights before when a dozen or so of us ate dinner together before breaking out the Risk board. However, given that, as far as I can see, never in the history of academia have students been seen as mature or well adjusted or adults or, indeed, humans I don't think we serve to negate the historian's point.
What he was getting at was that military history is finally starting to be seen as a real discipline. It has long been, and in many of the stuffier academic circles still is, greatly looked down upon by the historians proper and the lecturer assured us that were you to go into a history department and introduce yourself as a military historian the reaction would not necessarily be a positive one.
There are several reasons behind this, most of them unconvincing, and there are numerous rebuttals, most of them convincing, which I am not particularly inclined to go into now but one thing does strike me about this attitude: its startling detachment from the real world. Go into the history section of any good bookstore and you cannot help but notice the popularity of military history amongst the general public. Most stores even have a separate military history section. This is the history the average layman finds interesting. This is what they want to read for fun.
Does this mean that every interested individual, regardless of their education, is necessarily immature? Or might it possibly show an awareness of the influence of war over the ages and a subsequent desire to know more?
I'm leaning towards the latter option and perhaps if those historians proper would clamber down from their ivory towers they might too.
Apologies for the lack of posts in recent weeks. It's all been a tad hectic with essay after essay after essay and whilst I have been spending an awful lot of time at my laptop I've been looking a bit like this. But, I've just finished (about 30 mins ago) and have one day of fun in London before coming home for the holidays. Tonight, though, celebration: 'Ben & Jerry's' and a DVD. 
