SOCY365

This course asks, why do nations make war the way they do? And how does the experience of waging war in this manner remake institutions, social and political relationships and even culture? To answer these questions, the course adopts a comparative and historical perspective, highlighting the ways nations organize and mobilize for armed conflict as well as how they define 'the enemy' against whom they direct armed force, and the ways these together shape the social consequences of warfare. Among the range of social consequences, we will focus on three: the experience of combat itself; the impact of war on class, race and gender relations; and the emergence of cultural values around armed conflict and the place of warfare and soldiers in society. The course concludes with almost a month devoted to making sense of the War in Ukraine and considering where to go from here.