LEAD 475 - Modern Warfare and Military Leadership

Institution:

Williams College

Subject:

Leadership Studies

Description:

From the early nineteenth to the twenty-first century, modern history has been marked by numerous wars fought by nation states. Some of these wars were enormously destructive. Some changed history decisively on a continental or global scale. This modern period of warfare witnessed rapid and dramatic changes in the manner military forces were organized, armed, and led, and in their scale and lethalness. From the smoothbore musket to the machine gun, sailing warships to dreadnaught battleships, horse-pulled artillery to the atomic bomb, submarines under the seas and warplanes in the skies, to rockets and smart weapons, war rapidly evolved and continues to evolve today. This course will study these developments, concentrating on conflicts like the Napoleonic wars, the American Civil War, World War I and World War II, with special emphasis upon the evolution of military leaders like Napoleon, Grant and Lee, Moltke, Churchill and Roosevelt, Stalin and Hitler, Nelson and Doenitz, Eisenhower and MacArthur. Is it leadership that provides the key to our understanding of modern warfare? Or is it technology? Or certain "timeless" military principles that transcend local historical contexts? Can history help us foresee the future of warfare?

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Advanced courses in History

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Seminar

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.williams.edu

Phone Number:

(413) 597-3131

Regional Accreditation:

New England Association of Schools and Colleges

Calendar System:

Four-one-four plan

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