Military Sociology

Early European sociologists found war, peace, and the effects of both on social development to be important matters for the emerging discipline to explain and understand. Curiously, these issues faded from the sociological agenda after World War I and were not again much studied by sociologists until World War II and the long Cold War that followed. Since then to the present, studies of military sociology have grown in number and scope. Military sociology is now a well-established and respected subfield within sociology.

To survey the field this collection is organized around four major themes: (1) military organization, (2) civil-military relations, (3) the experience of war, and (4) the use and control of force.

Taking the origins of military sociology as a starting point, Volume I examines major trends in military organization, the increased diversity of military forces and the military profession. Volume II considers the military's relationships with the larger society. Sociologists examine how the military is woven into the fabric of society whether as an object of social control or as a representative institution garnering public support. Volume III is concerned with the experience of war, whether the experience is direct, gained (say) as a soldier in combat, or indirect, when it is mediated by social constructions of language and other social symbols. Volume IV studies the concept of force, and the varying intensities of conflict across the spectrum of force. It looks at the effects of war on state formation, the problems posed by chronic war, and the prospects for peacekeeping.