The ultimate experience: battlefield revelations and the making of modern war culture, 1450-2000

Abstract

For millennia, war was viewed as a supreme test. In the period 1750-1850 war became much more than a test: it became a secular revelation. This new understanding of war as revelation completely transformed Western war culture, revolutionizing politics, the personal experience of war, the status of common soldiers, and the tenets of military theory.

Contents

Suffering, death, and revelation in early modern culture -- The absence of revelation from early modern military memoirs -- Why war revealed nothing -- Bodies begin to think -- The rise of the common soldier -- The rise of the revelatory interpretation of war -- Conclusions : The things which make you know, 1865-2000.