Problematics of Military Power: Government, Discipline and the Subject of Violence

by Drake,Michael S.

• ISBN13: 9780714652023
• ISBN10: 0714652024
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-01-01
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Traces the relations between the organization of violence and social and political order from ancient Rome to early modern Europe. It studies the ways in which authority, obedience and forms of self-conduct were produced by the micro-techniques used to govern violence deployed in different forms of warfare. These issues comprise problematics of military power that are largely neglected by historical sociology and political history. The author shows that the constitution of military power and its relation to wider society has undergone a series of radical, discontinuous and contested shifts in the course of European history, rather than following a pattern of progressive abstraction of violence from society. The text argues that modern presumptions of an ahistorical dichotomy between military and civil society mat thus distort our understanding of the past and perhaps also of the future.

Author Biography

Michael Drake is a teaching fellow at the School of Economic and Social Studies, University of East Anglia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vi
Foreword	vii
Paul Hirst
Introduction	1	(12)
PART ONE: ANCIENT
Ancient Rome and Historical Sociology	13	(9)
The Roman Republic	22	(28)
The Imperial Order	50	(20)
From Pax Romana to the Order of Feud	70	(21)
PART TWO: MEDIEVAL
Medieval History and Historical Sociology	91	(12)
Encastellation	103	(16)
Three Orders of Violence	119	(25)
Medieval Formations: War-State and Law-State	144	(21)
PART THREE: LATE MEDIEVAL
The Hundred Years' War	165	(26)
A Military Domain	191	(26)
PART FOUR: EARLY MODERN
Two Sources of Military Modernity: Burgundy and the Swiss	217	(23)
Republic and Monarchy: Two Texts on Government, Discipline and the Subject of Violence	240	(17)
The Early Modern Army and Historical Sociology	257	(9)
Military Reformations	266	(20)
Military and Civil Society	286	(22)
Reflections	308	(11)
Select Bibliography	319	(7)
Index	326