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This textbook introduces the reader to the field of military sociology through narrative reviews of selected key studies in the discipline. The book provides a guided introduction. In each chapter, the authors set the stage and then immerse the reader in Spotlights – that is, descriptions of essential studies that inform the discipline of military sociology. The goal is to afford readers a ready pathway into how sociologists and social scientists have thought about topics in the study of the military and war. Topics covered in the book include: What is military sociology? What does it have to offer in understanding armed forces, wars, and societies? What basic tools are needed to ply sociological, or more broadly, social science perspectives for studying war and the military? What are the bio-social bases of war? What does the spectrum of such societally organized violence look like? How do societies raise and maintain formal militaries? What are variations in their social composition and in the profiles of civil–military relations? How and why is military organization and war changing so dramatically in the 21st-century? What does the future hold? This book will be of great interest to students of military sociology, the armed forces and society, peace studies, and international relations.

Military Sociology