{"content":[{"text":"British Journal for Military History, Volume 7, Issue 2, July 2021 \n Introduction: New Researchers and the Bright \n Future of Military History","bbox":{"left":0.087804,"top":0.059355,"width":0.8242659999999999,"height":0.10591500000000001}},{"text":"ZACK WHITE (Guest Editor)* \n University of Southampton, UK \n Email: z.white@soton.ac.uk","bbox":{"left":0.087804,"top":0.184265,"width":0.29791900000000004,"height":0.05893899999999999}},{"text":"Sir Max Hastings’s recent article bemoaning what he considers to be the demise of \n military history in the United States of America’s academic community generated \n significant controversy.1 The veracity of his suggestion is, of course, highly debatable, \n but the same cannot even be claimed of the study of military history in the UK (a point \n that Hastings himself acknowledges).2","bbox":{"left":0.087804,"top":0.282221,"width":0.8244279999999999,"height":0.097441}},{"text":"In fact it would seem that the military history community is thriving. A perusal of the \n profiles of academic staff in 85 UK universities shows that some 68 institutions (80%) \n employ at least one lecturer with expertise relating to military history. Equally, when \n examining the Journal of the Society of Army Historical Research’s lists of PhD theses \n produced on British Military History in the UK, the numbers appear to be on the rise.3 \n Between 2006 and 2009, 82 such theses were listed. A decade later, for the period \n 2016-2019, the figure is 112. Whilst the increase may be partially attributable to \n factors such as a greater accessibility of theses through online repositories, and \n growing opportunities for individuals to embark on PhDs, the fact remains that the \n evidence of military history being on the decline is scarce.","bbox":{"left":0.087804,"top":0.399207,"width":0.824709,"height":0.194921}},{"text":"Why therefore do a number of military historians harbour concerns about the future \n of the sub-discipline? Hastings’s comments actually form part of a longer conversation \n on the nature of military history and its value in both popular and academic circles.","bbox":{"left":0.087804,"top":0.613622,"width":0.824213,"height":0.058512999999999926}},{"text":"*Zack White is a PhD researcher at the University of Southampton, specialising in \n crime and punishment in the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars. \n DOI: 10.25602/GOLD.bjmh.v7i2.1551 \n 1Max Hastings, ‘American Universities Declare War on Military History’, Bloomberg, \n 31 January 2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-01-31/max- \n hastings-u-s-universities-declare-war-on-military-history Accessed 27 May 2021. \n 2Ibid. \n 3See for example Ian Beckett, ‘Doctoral Dissertations and Research Theses on British \n Military History’, Journal of the Society of Army Historical Research, 96, 387 (2018), pp. \n 289-291. To compile these figures, the equivalent articles for every year between 2006 \n and 2019 were examined. \n www.bjmh.org.uk 2","bbox":{"left":0.087804,"top":0.706275,"width":0.824935,"height":0.2344250000000001}}],"images_bbox":[],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[]}