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War & Peace Thursday: Part 2, Chapter 10
Apr. 28th, 2016 09:53 amWe've reached the first war section in War and Peace, and my progress has slowed down accordingly: I have never been all that interested in battles.
Despite this, I once got in an argument with my classmates in grad school that military history, despite being terribly out of fashion, might actually be important. We would all be living in a different world if the Confederacy had won the Civil War! Wouldn't we? Wouldn't we? Mightn't military victories and defeats have some hand in shaping social trends?
They did not seem impressed, although I'm not sure if they were philosophically opposed to this line of reasoning, or if they just didn't want to be railroaded into spending the rest of their lives analyzing the battle dynamics at Gettysburg. Which, you know, fair enough. Neither do I.
...But just because I don't want to do it myself doesn't mean that military history isn't important.
Now, getting back to the book. The Austrian general Metz has lost his army; the Russians are on their own, and in retreat before the French forces. I predict they soon will be rueing the day that they got involved in this war at all.
Despite this, I once got in an argument with my classmates in grad school that military history, despite being terribly out of fashion, might actually be important. We would all be living in a different world if the Confederacy had won the Civil War! Wouldn't we? Wouldn't we? Mightn't military victories and defeats have some hand in shaping social trends?
They did not seem impressed, although I'm not sure if they were philosophically opposed to this line of reasoning, or if they just didn't want to be railroaded into spending the rest of their lives analyzing the battle dynamics at Gettysburg. Which, you know, fair enough. Neither do I.
...But just because I don't want to do it myself doesn't mean that military history isn't important.
Now, getting back to the book. The Austrian general Metz has lost his army; the Russians are on their own, and in retreat before the French forces. I predict they soon will be rueing the day that they got involved in this war at all.
