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Given that I have been know to get into semantic debates from time to time here at WCF I thought I would post this here. I was catching up on Journal reading lately and came across an article in the Journal of Military History. The article concerns the strategy used by the Confederates in the Civil War. The crux of the argument is that there is a semantic disconnect between the standard account of confederate strategy and what the Confederates really did. It basically revolves around defining Policy, Grand Strategy, Strategy, Operations, Grand Tactics, and Tactics as these terms apply to military operations. I couldnt help but giggle as I read the article because the author ties himself into linguistic knots trying to justify his interpretation of an admittedly fuzzy subject. There is an article in response to this one but I have not read it yet. I will see if I can get a digital copy of the article and the response to it if anyone is interested.I just thought the article was cogent given the nature and number of semantic debates in military history in particular, but history generally. To me this reflects the influence of post-modern thought in an area of scholarship where it should be obvious but is in reality not as obvious. the use and abuse of language can be very subtle at times.The citation for the article is: Stoker, Donald. “Forum: Confederate Military Strategy in the U.S. Civil War – There was no Offensive-Defensive Confederate Strategy.” Journal of Military History Vol. 73, no. 2 (April 2009): 571-590.
I am not going to defend this guy's argument now because I have not read the article, but I have seen discussions on semantics for words used in history, and it has not been my impression that this is a post-modernist thing. I can see how meanings of words may shift over time, and failing to consider this may lead to errors when historians look back on historical texts and read every word as if it has the same meaning we ascribe to it today.Now I could see it being problematic for the guy if he's going overboard with his interpretations, or if he's trying to force something.http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/jmh/summary/v073/73.2.stoker.htmlThe author of that article must have published his book within the last few months:http://books.google.com/books?id=qKRfdueJwy0C&dq=%22There+was+no+Offensive-Defensive+Confederate+Strategy%22&source=gbs_navlinks_s
It is only post-modern in that post-modernists argue over the meaning of everything. However, I can see where there can be confusion in the use of military terms especially by historians. The difficulty is that different nations and languages use the same word to mean different things. It is also why when books are translated there are several different versions. I just thought this particular debate was humorous, it sure looks like this Stoker guy is out to make a name for himself.
