Men, Machines, and War

Ronald Haycock · Keith Neilson

01/2006 · Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press

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Using examples from the last two centuries, this collection of essays discusses the close links between technology and war. In the opening essay, distinguished historian William H. McNeill demonstrates the extent to which military technology has often led to differentiations among people, both within and between societies. The other studies examine various aspects of weapons technology, drawing on the history of the armed forces of Britain, Prussia, and Australia, among others. Some of these illustrate how the adoption of new weaponry frequently depended as much on national pride and party politics as it did on the purely technical merits of the weapons involved; that financial considerations became increasingly primary in technological developments in British army after World War I; and that decisions made prior to 1939 about the aviation technology to be developed for military purposes largely determined what kind of the RAF was able to fight.

The chapter by Dr. G.R. Lindsay, the Chief of the Operational Research and Analysis Establishment at the Department of National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa, makes the case that, with nuclear weapons added to the scene, the impact of technology on international security has never been as great as at present, and that the competition of nations seeking the technological edge in weaponry threatens to destabilize the precarious balance that has existed since 1945.

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Ronald Haycock is professor of Military History and War Studies. He received his university education at WLU and Waterloo and his doctorate from the University of Western Ontario. He is a former Head of RMC’s History Department, Dean of Arts and Chairman of the War Studies programme. A former member of the editorial boards of the journals War and Society and Ontario History, he is currently on the Advisory Board of the Canadian Military Journal. He is a past president of the Canadian Military History Group and a member of the Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defence Academies. His previous publications include: [http://www.wlupress.wlu.ca/Catalog/haycock.shtml Sam Hughes: The Public Career of a Controversial Canadian, 1885-1916] (WLU Press) and Men, Machines and War (WLU Press).

Keith Neilson is the author of a number of articles on British military history and Anglo-Russian relations. He is an associate professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and the author of Strategy and Supply: The Anglo-Russian Alliance 1914–17 (London, 1984).