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Article ID: CBB761922629

Is Military Technology Deterministic? (December 2019)

Roland, Alex (Author)

Vulcan
Volume: 7
Issue: 1
Pages: 19-33
Publication date: December 2019
Language: English

ISSN: 2213-459X; 2213-4603

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/22134603-00701002

Publication Date: December 2019
Edition Details: Special issue on technological determinism and war.

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In their papers prepared for this volume, Kelly DeVries and David Zimmerman explore the differing viewpoints on technological determinism that military historians bring to bear on premodern and modern warfare. This paper analyzes their respective arguments, including DeVries’s introduction of the concepts of effectiveness, invincibility, and decisiveness; it focuses primarily on technological determinism. It explores some concepts of historical causation and concludes that nothing in human behavior is deterministic. It recommends language that can help historians avoid this rhetorical battleground and speak more clearly and judiciously about the factors that shape warfare and affect its outcome.

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Includes Series Articles

Article Brown, Gates M. (December 2019) Technology’s Unrealistic Promise: The US Army in the 1950s and Technological Determinism. Vulcan (pp. 62-80). unapi

Article Zimmerman, David (December 2019) Neither Catapults nor Atomic Bombs: Technological Determinism and Military History from a Post-Industrial Revolution Perspective. Vulcan (pp. 45-61). unapi

Article DeVries, Kelly R. (December 2019) Catapults Still Aren’t Atomic Bombs: Effectiveness and Determinism in Premodern Military Technology. Vulcan (pp. 34-44). unapi

Included in

Article Goodman, Seymour E. (December 2019) Deploying Technological Innovation in “Real Time”: Union and Confederate Ironclads. Vulcan (pp. 81-110). unapi

Article Walton, Steven A. (December 2019) Technological Determinism(s) and the Study of War. Vulcan (pp. 4-18). unapi

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data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB761922629

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