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Technology and Culture 43.2 (2002) 455-457



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Book Review

War in the Age of Technology:
Myriad Faces of Modern Armed Conflict


War in the Age of Technology: Myriad Faces of Modern Armed Conflict. Edited by Geoffrey Jensen and Andrew Wiest. New York: New York University Press, 2001. Pp. ix+397. $65/$21.

A frequent reviewers' criticism of anthologies is "lack of cohesion." It is indeed difficult to bring a dozen or so historians onto a single track, and a preliminary scan of this book's table of contents would seem to invite the familiar judgment. Of the thirteen chapters, five cover aspects of World War I. The rest range from broad-gauged overviews of technology and armed forces through case studies of contemporary Russia and Iraq to an analysis of the impact of World War II on the civil rights movement.

This book, in short, is not for readers who insist on structural coherence. If, on the other hand, one respects intellectual originality and admires a wide range of provocative ideas assembled in one place, War in the Age of Technology will repay acquisition. It is the product of an unusual intellectual matrix. The Center for the Study of War and Society, at the University of Southern Mississippi, has a regular faculty exchange with Britain's Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. The authors and their contributions reflect the broad spectrum of interests and approaches that might be expected when two such different institutions interact. [End Page 455]

The contributors from both sides of the Atlantic brought their A games. Paddy Griffith leads off with a survey of the relationships between infantry armament and tactical conditions from the French Revolution to 1918. His controversial conclusion is that a "myth of long-range accuracy" dominated armies during this period, and it was only during the Great War that close combat, and the accompanying need for high rates of fire, were accepted as norms. Warren Chin follows Griffith by making a solid case that, since 1945, armed forces have evolved into an asset too complex and too expensive to place at risk of serious loss. Stephen Badsey's comprehensive discussion highlights the expanding roles of communications technology and the mass media since 1815 in fostering public awareness of the issues and the nature of individual conflicts.

Part 2 is dominated by five first-class essays on the British Expeditionary Force. G. D. Sheffield establishes the continuing importance of small-unit identity in a mass industrial war. Chris McCarthy discusses the problem of boredom in the ranks, and the army's efforts to keep the troops occupied. Robert McClain's chapter on the Indian Corps helps restore the lost history of a fine fighting formation whose Indian and Gurkha professionals in the war's crucial early months helped save "the sum of things" under conditions for which they were in no way prepared. Brian Bond analyzes the tension between history and myth in British approaches to the Battle of the Somme. Niall Barr offers one of the better accounts of the evolution of the "semimobile" battles of late 1918, and makes a debate-worthy case that the roots of modern maneuver warfare are best sought there, rather than in postwar German theories.

The other two pieces in part 2, Eric Bobo's essay on the development of radar and jet propulsion in Britain and Neil McMillen's study of African Americans in the U.S. armed forces of World War II, might more profitably have been integrated into a retitled and reorganized part 3 dealing with the transition from total war to limited war. Bobo does a solid job demonstrating the problems of establishing the relations between government and science under wartime conditions. Sean McKnight's essay on Iran as a "third world superpower" highlights the difficulties of achieving the necessary synergy between armed forces and sociopolitical structures in a developing, authoritarian society. Michael Orr's account of Russia's warmaking in a "postindustrial age" describes breakdown because of an inappropriate emphasis on material factors at the expense...

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