A Symposium: Teaching about the Military in American History: A History Institute for Teachers, held March 24–25, 2007, is now available on-line at the website of the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
The symposium was sponsored by the Marvin Wachman Fund for International Education, A Project of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and by the Cantigny First Division Foundation. It was co-chaired by David Eisenhower and Walter A. McDougall.
Topics include:
Keynote: In the Company of Soldiers (Rick Atkinson, winner of two Pulitizer PrizesAuthor of In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat (Henry Holt, 2004))
Teaching About the Military: the Basics
Teaching the Classics: What Americans Can Learn from Herodotus
The Social Dimensions of the US Civil War
Understanding the Creation of the U.S. Armed Forces
The US and Unconventional War
World War II and Its Meaning for Americans
War and the Military in American History
Now...I'm posting this because it's on a helpful topic that some readers will have an interest in, and it's recommended by Cliopatria. But there was a serious flaw in the planning. Much scholarship makes clear that military history is not unidimensional. There has been great work underway on race in the military, issues of gender and sexuality, etc. Yet every single speaker, from the introducers through all lecturers, is white and male.
What century are we in?
So get what you can out of this, here, and then go buy a good book like Elizabeth Hillman, Defending America: Military Culture and the Cold War Court-Martial (Princeton Univ. Press, 2005), for the parts they leave out.
