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Critical Approaches to the History of Violence and Conflict

Module description

This module introduces you to the main approaches historians have taken to studying the causes and consequences of societal conflict at the communal, national and transnational levels. They will be introduced to major themes in the study of violence and conflict, assessing the role of the international system and political economy as well as regional factors and internal societal pressures in shaping societal responses to domestic and foreign conflict. You will explore the role of wars, civil wars, revolutions, insurgencies and violence in promoting or inhibiting social and political change, as well as considering the roles of civilians, groups and parties. The module draws on the expertise of staff in the Centre for War, State and Society and may range across Britain, Europe, Africa, Asia, and beyond depending on the interests of the teaching team and the students.

Module aims - intentions of the module

This module is designed to enhance your understanding of the main themes and approaches in the study of violence and conflict. You will be introduced to major themes in the study of violence and conflict, assessing the role of the international systems and political economy as well as regional factors and internal societal pressures in shaping societal responses to domestic and foreign conflict. You will explore the role of wars, civil wars, revolutions, insurgencies and violence in promoting or inhibiting social and political change, as well as considering the roles of civilians, groups and parties. By introducing you to the major debates in these areas alongside critical concepts, discourse and debates, the module will prepare you for further study in this area or dissertation research.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Understand and evaluate the main themes and approaches in the study of violence and conflict
• 2. Possess detailed knowledge of the key historiographical and theoretical debates informing the study of violence and conflict
• 3. Assess critically the role of primary sources in informing the study of violence and conflict

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 4. Analyse and synthesise different types of historical material and evidence
• 5. Demonstrate a critical understanding of key historical concepts and debates, and recognise the differences between different approaches and source types
• 6. Develop practical research skills in the primary and secondary evidence

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 7. Demonstrate capacity for independent critical research, study and thought, including developing the ability to construct and defend a sustained argument, both in written form and orally, using primary and secondary materials
• 8. Work as an individual and with a tutor and peers in an independent, constructive and responsive way
• 9. Apply key bibliographical skills to independent study

Syllabus plan

Over the course of a term, potential seminar topics may include (these will vary depending on staff expertise and student choice):

• Morale, discipline and combat motivation
• The civilianisation of warfare
• Occupied societies
• War economies
• Contested decolonisation and insurgency
• Genocide and mass violence
• Routine violence (including state, political, gendered and communal (religious) violence)
• Political violence (including nationalism/anti-imperialism, guerrilla insurgency and civil war)
• War and revolution and the legacy of war (including the relationships between war, revolution, state-building and social change, and the relationships between conflict and identity, culture and gender)
• Film and war
• Memory and the aftermath of war

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 50%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of referral will be capped at 50%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Bernard Waites, A Class Society at War: England 1914-1918 (Berg, 1987).
• Bob Moore and Barbara Hately-Broad (eds.), Prisoners of War, Prisoners of Peace: Captivity, Homecoming and Memory in World War II (Oxford, 2005).
• Martin Thomas et al, Crises of Empire: Decolonization and Europe’s Imperial States (London, 2008).
• R. G. Moeller, War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal Republic of Germany (Berkeley, 2003).
• J. Winter, Remembering War: The Great War between Memory and History in the 20th Century (Yale, 2006).
• R. Overy, Why the Allies Won (London, 1997).
• Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil Wars (Cambridge, 2007).
• D. Edgerton, Warfare State: Britain, 1920-1970 (Cambridge, 2005).
• G.C. Peden, Arms, Economics and British Strategy: From Dreadnaughts to Hydrogen Bombs (Cambridge, 2006).
• M. Harrison, Medicine and Victory: British Military Medicine in the Second World War (Cambridge, 2004).
• Christian Gerlach, Extremely violent societies: mass violence in the twentieth-century world (Cambridge, 2010).
• Christian Gerlach, The Extermination of the European Jews (Cambridge, 2015).
• Vejas Liulevicius, War Land on the Eastern Front: National Identity and German Occupation in World War I (Cambridge, 2000).
• Karel Berkhoff, Harvest of despair: life and death in Ukraine under Nazi rule (Cambridge, MA, 2004).
• Omer Bartov, The Eastern Front, 1941-45: German Troops and the Barbarization of Warfare (London, 1985).
• Alexander Watson, Enduring the Great War: Combat, Morale and Collapse in the German and British Armies, 1914-1918(Cambridge, 2008).
• Hein Klemann, Sergei Kudryashov, Occupied Economies (Oxford, 2013).
• Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The making and breaking of the Nazi economy (London, 2006).
• Jonas Scherner and Eugene White (eds.), Paying for Hitler's War: The Consequences of Nazi Economic Hegemony for Europe (Cambridge, 2016).
• Richard Overy,The Bombing War: Europe, 1939-1945 (London, 2013).
• Isabel Hull, Absolute destruction: military culture and the practices of war in Imperial Germany (Ithaca, 2005).

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• ELE page: https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=6475

Key words search

War, state, society, violence, conflict