Intervention in the existing historiography is essential for historians to contribute new research while addressing the methodological differences throughout the field. To do so, historians use a combination of both methodological and historiographical approaches. These approaches become the key to unlocking new ideas, challenging previous paradigms, and expanding research. Historians Mark Wilson and Ella Fratantuono provide two case studies to analyze, that subsequently reveal how historians interact and engage with one another. While these historians work within historiographies from two different fields, regions, and eras in history, their research process calls for analysis to investigate how historiography and methodologies interact.
…show more content…
Wilson argues that the history of the military industrial complex has "stagnated," from a historiography that has been limited by two, prominent groups in the 70s. Further, Wilson believes this stagnation can be attributed to the politicized historiography, ignorance on the topic, and the general shift away from military, economic and political history. He begins the historiography in a Cold/ Vietnam War background, with the work of C. Wright Mills. Mill’s 1956 The Power Elite, represented scholarship termed the “New Left,” who saw the military-industrial complex as a decline in American democracy and capitalism. Paul Koistinen and other historians such as B.F Cooling and Katherine Epstein also contribute to this “New Left” ideology. Paul Koistinen uses top government officials and civilian industries for his research. Koistinen is anti-corporation and anti-U.S government, providing a narrowness of our understanding. He argues that the military industry had a stagnant, gradually growing complex, that peaked in the nineteenth-century. This research focused primarily on the highest levels of government; this perspective, moreover, detailed the lack of boundaries between private, big business, and the nation-state. In response to the “New Left” the 1970s, historians of science and technology addressed the historiography by shifting away from business and politics of war; instead, this group focused on the military's use of agency and autonomy. Through this autonomy, they argue that promotion of technological innovation and economic growth became prominent. Unlike the “New Left,” this second group fit on the opposite end of the spectrum, while still remaining anti-government. Wilson attempts to get beyond these two groups and instead offers a sympathetic look at
Wilson argues that the history of the military industrial complex has "stagnated," from a historiography that has been limited by two, prominent groups in the 70s. Further, Wilson believes this stagnation can be attributed to the politicized historiography, ignorance on the topic, and the general shift away from military, economic and political history. He begins the historiography in a Cold/ Vietnam War background, with the work of C. Wright Mills. Mill’s 1956 The Power Elite, represented scholarship termed the “New Left,” who saw the military-industrial complex as a decline in American democracy and capitalism. Paul Koistinen and other historians such as B.F Cooling and Katherine Epstein also contribute to this “New Left” ideology. Paul Koistinen uses top government officials and civilian industries for his research. Koistinen is anti-corporation and anti-U.S government, providing a narrowness of our understanding. He argues that the military industry had a stagnant, gradually growing complex, that peaked in the nineteenth-century. This research focused primarily on the highest levels of government; this perspective, moreover, detailed the lack of boundaries between private, big business, and the nation-state. In response to the “New Left” the 1970s, historians of science and technology addressed the historiography by shifting away from business and politics of war; instead, this group focused on the military's use of agency and autonomy. Through this autonomy, they argue that promotion of technological innovation and economic growth became prominent. Unlike the “New Left,” this second group fit on the opposite end of the spectrum, while still remaining anti-government. Wilson attempts to get beyond these two groups and instead offers a sympathetic look at