Xiangyun Xu (Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of History, Peking University)
Sociologist Charles Tilly once had an argument: "War gives birth to the state, and the state makes war." This phrase applies both to the Nation-States of Europe in the early modern period and to the United States. The public has long relished the various overseas wars and interventions carried out by the United States since the beginning of the Cold War, as well as the kidnapping of U.S. foreign policy by "military-industrial complex" interest groups. There are also history buffs who learn about the Story of the American Civil War through films and novels such as Gone with the Wind, as well as the history of American-Indian relations presented in various Westerns. But beyond these public histories, how do professional historians examine the impact and shaping of war on American history and society? What trends in the historiography profession does the study of warfare in American history reflect? This is the problem that this article will clarify.
War with the Construction of the American Nation
The impact of the war on American history and society is profound. Niu Ke comprehensively introduced the "national security state" that the United States needed to respond to potential war during the Cold War, covering many aspects of American politics and society. The most intuitive is the well-known "military-industrial complex": national defense demand has spawned a number of enterprises that develop and produce weapons and equipment, such as Boeing and McDouglass are involved in the manufacture of civilian products at the same time, first applied to weapons and equipment technology and then adopted in civilian products, the military's large R & D funds to support disguised to reduce the cost of civilian products, so that they are competitive in the international market, thus becoming an important part of the US economy. In addition, given that companies are unable to do all the research and development work required for defense, especially basic research that is heavily invested but cannot be translated into applicable technologies in the short term, the Department of Defense has established a series of laboratories and works closely with universities, and grants from the federal government are critical to the development of American universities.
In addition to the "military industry academic complex", the integration and expansion of intelligence agencies is also an important part of the "national security state". The well-known CIA was born during this period, and it and the FBI were responsible for the collection and collation of intelligence at home and abroad, and together with other intelligence agencies, they greatly strengthened the state's ability to monitor individual citizens. In addition, both the CIA and its predecessors favored to draw talent from the social sciences and humanities, such as the prominent historian William Langer and Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who served here, further strengthening the ties between defense agencies and the academic community, and in line with the tradition of the expanding U.S. "national security state" since World War I to seek talent from the private sector to enrich national security institutions.
In addition to the institutional setup of the state, the "national security state" has also infiltrated other aspects of American life, represented by the civil defense work of American society in response to nuclear war, which Laura McNani called the militarization of daily life in her 2000 book. In order to raise awareness of the response to nuclear war, the Federal Civil Protection Agency has carried out a series of publicity work, including the broadcast of educational films in school classrooms and the conduct of civil defense exercises. It also calls on people to build nuclear war bunkers in their backyards and store food inside. It is clear that women play an important role in this. Ironically, the generation that grew up under Cold War civil defense education eventually became the backbone of the Anti-War movement in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, and was an important participant in the countercultural movement at the time.
In addition to the wars of the 20th century, which are the most recent to our time, and the preparations for potential wars, the wars of the 19th century also had a profound impact on the American nation. As part of the "rediscovery of the state" research trend in political science in the 1980s, Stephen Kronecker wrote In 1982, Building a New America: An Expansion of The State's Administrative Capacity, 1877-1920, which involved attempts by U.S. military personnel to reform state militias to build specialized reserve echelons similar to those of Prussia, while expanding the authority of professional servicemen in staff planning. Explaining why he chose this period for his research, Scroneck noted that the U.S. state also experienced volume expansion during the Civil War, but this only happened in the North.
As a detailed explanation and complement to this view, Richard Franklin Bensell published Yankelivitan: The Origins of the Central Authority in the United States in 1990, 1859-1877. The book delves into the mobilization of material and manpower for the war, the mobilization of funds for the war between the North and the South during the American Civil War, and the many involvements of the federal government in the affairs of the South during the Reconstruction Period. The protracted civil war forced both sides to move from the initial volunteer system to conscription, printing paper money and bonds to cover war expenses, and giving the president greater authority. Radical Republicans set legislative preconditions for the return of the Southern states to the Commonwealth, even touching on the Economic Relations and Modes of Production in the South. Seven years later, Heather Cox Richardson published The Greatest Nation on Earth: Republican Economic Policy During the Civil War, examining a series of economic legislation passed by Republicans taking advantage of the majority in Congress during the Civil War, including the issuance of bonds and banknotes to finance the war, tariff and tax adjustments, the establishment of land-grant universities, the passage of the Homestead Act, and the construction of transcontinental railroads, further demonstrating how the Civil War shaped the American economy and society at the time. Sidda Skokpol's 1995 book, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of American Social Policy, found that, given its sheer number and breadth of coverage, the allowances granted to veterans of the American Civil War became an abuse of future social welfare policies.
War and Gender and Cultural Studies
In addition to political and economic history, the study of civil wars has also produced classics in gender and cultural studies, of which Drew Gilpin Foster is a representative. In 1996, she published The Mother of Creation and Invention: Women of the Enslaved South During the American Civil War, which examines how Women in the South responded to the shortage of supplies, the departure of their husbands and social unrest caused by the Civil War, emphasizing that these matters expanded their responsibilities and strengthened the ties between women. Although the work has the flaw of paying too much attention to upper-class white women, it is still a classic. Her focus on the delicate relationship between white female slave owners and slavery has recently become a hot topic in academic research. In addition to the study of women themselves, masculinity and sexual culture have also become the subject of academic research, with Judy Gasberg examining the culture of pornographic publications in the barracks during the Civil War and how it became the basis for Anthony Konstock's fight against feminists who promoted contraceptive knowledge after the war, thus emphasizing the importance of the Civil War in shaping gender perceptions and gender discourse.
In the study of civil war culture, Foster is also at the forefront of the times. Her 2008 book, The Crucified Nation: Death and the American Civil War, explores how American society can make psychological adjustments and ritual shifts in response to the mass deaths of people far from home and loved ones caused by the Civil War. Foster's book also reflects the "dark turn" in the study of the American Civil War, emphasizing the tragic and destructive nature of the Civil War, after all, more than 600,000 people died of war or died of disease, making it the deadliest war in American history. In this batch of new academic works, many works of medical history, disease history and physical history are particularly striking, such as the scene of black slaves suffering from epidemic diseases after liberation, the bloody scenes of war surgery, the widespread disabled veterans in post-war society, and the terrible scenes that even make people doubt the significance of the civil war. And this is where such works have been criticized by their peers, that is, to dilute the necessity and justice of the American Civil War and highlight the image of the victims of the South. In contrast, the work highlighting the planning and unfolding of northern women's participation in field rescue is more in line with the narrative of the positive significance of the civil war.
Academic discussions of american war and the relationship between gender and culture are not limited to civil war, after all, the modern "total war" has long blurred the distinction between the front line and the rear, and the rear has become an inseparable part of the war. As during the Civil War, with the mass entry of adult men into the army, women took on the burden of industry and agricultural production, and Rosie, a rivet worker, became a symbol of women's participation in military production during World War II, and they took no less risk in ammunition factories than soldiers on the front line. In addition, they join a variety of volunteer organizations to raise funds for war-affected refugees and war efforts in the United States. Other women put on military uniforms and served as telephone operators, nurses, aircraft test pilots, etc. Although women with post-war demobilization gradually withdrew from work and returned to their families, wartime experience became one of the bases for women's demands for equal rights. Even as early as the American Revolution, American women contributed to the American cause by refusing to consume granulated sugar.
"Small-scale wars" and the rise of the American Empire
In addition to the two eye-catching world wars and the American Civil War, the sporadic wars fought by the United States in the process of foreign expansion have also attracted more and more attention from the academic community, especially the Spanish-American War in 1898 and the US War of Suppression of Filipinos Resistance since 1899, reflecting the rise of American history in the study of American history from an imperial perspective. In the 1898 Spanish-American War, the United States defeated Spain and seized Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines, the first time since the purchase of tiny islands such as Alaska and the occupation of midway, that the United States had acquired an overseas colony with a large non-white Indigenous population. Paul S. A. Kramer published Bloody Government: Race, Empire, America, and the Philippines in 2006, exploring U.S. wars of conquest and colonial rule in the Philippines, especially their division of different races within Filipinos, the corresponding policies surrounding this distinction, and the ultimate refusal to grant them equal rights to U.S. citizens. Alfred P. W. McCoy and Francisco Three years later, Scarano edited and published Colonial Tests: The Role of Empire in the Creation of the Modern American State, which pointed out that measures advocated by progressives, such as the establishment of the police force, the fight against drug crime, the reform of the prison system, and the improvement of the health care system, were first implemented in the colonies and then implemented in the United States.
In addition to the colonial wars, the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848 was also one of the wars of the 19th century that had a great influence on the course of American history. The academic circles have basically reached a consensus that after the Mexican-American War, the United States annexed a large number of territories such as Texas, California, and New Mexico from Mexico, and whether slavery was allowed in these areas aggravated the original differences between the North and the South of the United States, enhanced the tension between the two sides, and eventually led to the outbreak of the American Civil War, and many commanders of the two armies also participated in the Mexican-American War. Amy Greenberg published A Vicious War in 2012: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the U.S. Invasion of Mexico in 1846, arguing that the protracted Mexican-American War gave birth to the first large-scale anti-war movement in American history that successfully ended the Mexican-American War. She also studied the cross-border raids on Latin American countries on the eve of the Civil War, noting that the promotion of masculinity at the time played an important role in it.
Amy Greenberg
In addition to the Mexican-American War, the occasional conflict between the U.S. army and settlers and Native Americans throughout the 19th century also had a profound impact on American society at the time. In "Cotton Empire", Sven Beckett mentioned that President Jackson's forced the westward migration of the natives of the American South in the 1830s to open up a new land for the development of the cotton economy in the region, which is the embodiment of the "war capitalism" of the modern West to promote economic development with the help of countries with strong ships and cannons. Jackson's toughness toward the Indians is inextricably linked to his previous experience of crossing the border to attack the Seminoles in Florida. In addition to its economic development implications, Deborah M. A. Rosen's 2015 book also points out that the war between 1816 and 1818, which occurred shortly after the end of the second war with Britain, demonstrated to the world the strength of the United States and its determination to defend its borders, even at the expense of invading the territory of other countries.
The conflict between the U.S. army and settlers and native Indians has shaped american culture while demonstrating the power of the United States, the most typical of which is turner's frontier theory at the end of the 19th century, that is, the national character of the United States was formed in the pioneering of the western frontier and the conflict with the Indians. In contrast, one of the most popular mass entertainment programs in American society at that time was "Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show", in which white and Indian actors worked together to show scenes of settlers and Indians clashing, and the result was always the triumph of civilization over barbarism. Western novels, as well as 20th-century American Westerns, mostly convey this theme.
Today's academic research on the history of indigenous Indians is to a certain extent to subvert these stereotypes, scholars examine the organizational forms and lifestyles of Indian society, examine the history of contact with white people from their perspective, and highlight the subjective initiative of indigenous peoples, for example, some scholars pointed out that the Comanche people once relied on hunting bison to establish their own empire in the western steppe, and led to the occurrence of major events such as Mexican independence and the Mexican War. In the early days of the colony, the Indians of the Great Lakes region were able to compete with the European colonists and take what they needed, making the area a middle ground for contact between the two sides, and the beaver fur hunted and produced by the Indians became a strange commodity in the European and Oriental markets. In order to join the trade network built by the Indians, the white fur merchants did not hesitate to become the adopted sons of the local chiefs and marry Indian women. In addition, scholars have also highlighted the tragedy of the Indian wars, especially the massacre of Indians by whites, and even the fact that some scholars have called it genocide. Of course, some scholars have emphasized that before the arrival of white colonists, various Indian tribes had already fought each other for feuds or competition for resources, which was no less tragic than the conflict between whites and Indians.
The Impact of Racial Perspectives and Transnational History
From the study of the Indian War, it can be seen that in addition to gender, the racial perspective has become an important dimension for academics to discuss the American war. In the traditional narrative, whites have been the protagonists of all the wars in the United States, in which the American Civil War is also depicted as the war of white brothers. The rise of the civil rights movement in the 1960s prompted all ethnic groups in the United States to reflect their own history, including their participation in wars. The most familiar to the outside world are the 442nd Infantry Regiment composed of Japanese-Americans during World War II, and the Navajo Indian correspondents. In addition, the wartime experiences of minority communities have also become the object of scholarly research, which in turn links the study of war history with the study of immigration history. Hostility to Germany during World War I led to attempts to eliminate german cultural influences, with the teaching of German and German works in schools becoming taboo, hamburgers renamed freedom bags, and the close ties between German immigrants and alcohol manufacturing that led to constitutional amendments to the Constitution prohibiting the sale of alcohol. Groups of German immigrants, who were originally highly proud of their own culture, also actively cooperated with such initiatives to avoid persecution and discrimination.
Similarly, most scholars have emphasized the experience of the Japanese-American community on the West Coast who were displaced and detained during the war, and highlighted their continued loyalty to the United States, but Ai Mingru pointed out that there were also speculators and die-hards in Japanese-American internment camps, hoping day and night for the Japanese to enter the West Coast. The Chinese-American community raised funds to support the Chinese War during the Pacific War and even directly participated in the war against Japan. But during the Cold War, they also became the object of suspicion by the U.S. government, and they needed to expose their families' illegal immigration history to avoid deportation by the U.S. government. Mexican laborers effectively filled the labor gap in U.S. agricultural production during World War II, but became the focus of the U.S. government's crackdown on illegal immigration during the Cold War.
As a group that also arrived on the North American continent only a few years after the arrival of white colonists, African Americans' involvement in the American war has a long history. During both the War of Independence and the War of 1812, the British used freedom as a bargaining chip to induce African slaves to flee, and then joined the British army to fight the American army. On the other side of the front, slave owners often took their slaves to the battlefield to take care of their diet, a situation that continued into the Mexican-American War and the American Civil War. But the Confederacy did not make up its mind to organize blacks into the army until the eve of the end of the Civil War, in stark contrast to former slaves in the North who had called for emancipation in the middle of the war. For blacks in the North, joining the Federal Army not only allowed them to destroy slavery with their own hands, but also a way for them to prove their manhood and thus fight for their own post-war rights, and many African American Civil War veterans played a key role in the formation and operation of black political organizations during the reconstruction period, which also made them and their families the primary targets of attacks by white racist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan. At the same time, African Americans also participated in the war against the Indians after the Civil War, and the nickname "Bison Soldier" was named after it, and they were also indispensable to overseas colonial wars such as the Spanish-American War. In fact, the African-American team, not Theodore Roosevelt's "Mangshots," played a central role in the capture of San Juan Hill in Cuba, only to be buried by postwar propaganda.
While fighting overseas highlights the contribution of African Americans to the United States, it also highlights the injustice of the racial segregation system in the United States. During World War I and World War II, the U.S. military's training facilities were mostly in the South, and African Americans trained in these places had to follow a strict apartheid system and use facilities different from whites. But in Europe, the relatively relaxed racial environment made African Americans more aware of the absurdity of the apartheid system. Like their Civil War-era predecessors, black veterans became the leading force for African-American community organizations. At the same time, the discrepancy between apartheid and the great war-going doctrine preached by the United States forced the U.S. government to make concessions on racial issues. During World War II, when African-American leaders threatened to organize a grand march to Washington, President Franklin D. Roosevelt promised to hire more blacks in the expanding military-industrial enterprises to avoid the United States from being ugly in front of ally public opinion, and responded to Axis propaganda surrounding Race in the United States. During the Korean War, President Truman ordered the lifting of racial segregation in the U.S. military and the mixing of white and black soldiers. As Hsieh demonstrated, the pressure of cold war public opinion led the Eisenhower administration to adopt an approach of sympathy for African-American claims in dealing with the Little Rock affair.
Taking a racial perspective in the study means not only pointing out the contributions of various ethnic groups to the American war efforts, but also exploring the racial makeup and origin of the American opponents, the Indian tribes mentioned above, and the black people who served in the British army during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 have recently become hot topics in academic research. As Alain Taylor's writings on the War of Independence and the War of 1812 point out, different Indian tribes served the British and American armies for a variety of reasons. This, coupled with the presence of patriots and loyalists, gave both wars the character of a "civil war.". This situation existed as early as the colonial period, including during the Seven Years' War, and some Indian tribes would even wait for prices between different European countries, choosing to ally with the countries with the best interests. In her work on the Mexican-American War, Greenberg also mentions that soldiers of Irish descent deserted for religious reasons and chose to serve in the Mexican army. Southern Irish immigrants during the American Civil War also confronted The Irish in the North and linked the Confederacy cause to Ireland's efforts to gain independence from British rule.
The Irish-American experience reflects the impact of transnational history and the rise of global history on the study of the history of war. Migration, the slave trade, commerce, and the production and exchange of knowledge prompted scholars, such as Bernard Belling, to propose the concept of Atlantic history and implement it in their research. During the War of Independence, the British army was understaffed and employed a large number of soldiers from the German principalities, and the Declaration of Independence accused the British king of "transporting a large mercenary army to accomplish the cause of death, destruction and tyranny". In addition, many Soldiers of the German Principality brought their families to the United States, and the diary of the wife of one of the commanders became an important historical material for academic research on the Battle of Saratoga. After the end of the Revolutionary War, some soldiers, feeling the vast land of the United States, chose to stay in the United States to farm. Andrew Jackson O'Shoresey discussed from the perspective of British policymakers what factors contributed to Britain's loss of the United States. On the American side, Larry Ferrero emphasized that the Declaration of Independence contained a desire for recognition and assistance from European countries, and that military materiel and support from France and Spain played a key role in the success of the American Revolution. After the founding of the United States, the fight against barbaric piracy in North Africa became the nascent country's first appearance on the international stage. Both sides of the American Civil War were struggling to win the support of European countries, and the North gathered many elders of the European Revolution of 1848, who regarded the war as a continuation of their unfinished business in Europe. It was for this reason that they were extremely wary of French intervention in mexico in propping up the Austrian nobility as monarchs, and saw that France was trying to use it as a springboard to collude with the Confederacy and thus subvert the Republican system in the United States. So it wasn't until 1867, when the French monarch was executed, that they thought the American Civil War was done. Some of their civil war opponents chose to take slaves with them to Cuba or Brazil after the war, where they continued the slavery lifestyle, and some even crossed the Atlantic Ocean to serve the Egyptian monarchs.
In the face of the vast history of the Atlantic, the history of the Pacific is also trying to highlight its importance. During World War II, a large number of U.S. military personnel were stationed in Australia and New Zealand, bringing American culture and lifestyles such as Coca-Cola and tipping to the area. Some local women became war brides after the war and traveled to the United States. U.S. postwar troops stationed in Asian countries and its involvement in the wars in Korea and Vietnam led Asian women to join the ranks of war brides, as did immigrants from North Korea and Vietnam. In the 19th century, a small number of Chinese immigrants took part in the American Civil War. Some U.S. soldiers traveled to Asia to pan for gold and adventure, the story of Ma Giffin, a sailor in the Beiyang Fleet, was widely known, and the senior commander of the Changsheng Army during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement was also an American. The taiping rebellion coincided with the American Civil War, and the interlacing of the two in time and space contains many adventurers' journey across the Pacific. After the end of the Civil War, some veterans followed the route opened by General Perry and found opportunities in Meiji Restoration Japan as Japanese instructors. In addition, letters from these servicemen sometimes appear in American newspapers and constitute an important source of knowledge for Americans abroad.
epilogue
As can be seen from the above review, there is a growing emphasis on the major impact of war in shaping American history and society: war has increased the power of the federal government, and its tentacles have reached all aspects of American social life. The war forced women to take on more responsibilities, which became the basis for their later struggle for equal rights. On the international stage, the war elevated the international status and prestige of the United States, witnessing the rise of the United States from 13 colonies on the eastern coast to a superpower, and also mixed with the joys and sorrows of different races and ethnicities. European volunteers have served in many U.S. wars, and U.S. soldiers have traveled around the world. Therefore, the study of war history has long been not limited to the investigation of the course of the campaign and war, but has expanded to the exploration of all aspects of American history and society, thus intersecting with gender history, cultural history, social history, immigration history and other disciplines, drawing resources and inspiration from them.
Editor-in-Charge: Yu Shujuan
Proofreader: Zhang Liangliang