The Social Impact of War

The authors, by reviewing the recent work of several behavioral and social science disciplines concerned with the impact of war upon society, suggest that the study of war’s social ramifications has been characterized by the publication of empirical work that neglects, to some extent, the larger sociological implications of war as well as its ability to reorder society. The work published over the last two decades and reviewed here was written in the United States in the wake of the Vietnam conflict. This work has examined the implications of military manpower recruitment and training, as well as the psychological and economic implications of wartime service. The immediacy of this conflict, however, may have deterred sociological analysts from systematically examining the macroscopic implications of social change, a void that is remedied, in part, by historical and literary analyses that consider the long-range impacts of past wars on their belligerent societies. Finally, the authors propose that the study of the life course may offer one avenue of inquiry that can connect the micro- and macro- levels of analysis, thus connecting the soldier’s story to that of his changing society.