Iraq, Afghanistan, and rethinking the post-heroic turn
Military decorations as indicators of change in warfare
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4301112 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Brieg Powel (0000-0001-7103-8637) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2018-03-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Historical Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0952-1909 • E-ISSN: 1467-6443 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/johs.12175 |
| OpenAlex | W2764279482 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 3 |
This article compares the awarding patterns of the two senior Anglophone military decorations, the British/Commonwealth Victoria Cross and the American Medal of Honor, to challenge arguments that a shift to 'post-heroic' warfare has been in progress in Western societies since 1990. Despite the two decorations being independent of each other, each born of a particular military, political, and social context in their respective parent societies, the article reveals strong consistencies across the two. These include common understandings of military heroism centred on infantry- rather than machine-intensive combat, and a shared neglect of armoured, aerial, and naval combatants. Crucially, the medal data suggests that, despite academic suggestions to the contrary, there was no discernible shift towards 'post-heroism' in the post-Cold War era. Such a shift, however, is observable between 1916 and 1920, suggesting that the 'new Western way of war' began far earlier than is often suggested
Commonwealth · Context (archaeology · Honor · Infantry · Medal · Political science · Politics · Presidency · Sociology · Defense, Military, and Policy Studies · Military History and Strategy · World Wars: History, Literature, and Impact · History · Law
| Citations per year | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2025 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |