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OverviewBousquet's book considers the impact of key technologies and scientific ideas on the practice of warfare and the handling of the perennial tension between order and chaos on the battlefield. It spans the entire modern era, from the Scientific Revolution to the present, eschewing traditional accounts of technological change in war and instead exploring modern warfare as the constitution of increasingly complex social assemblages of bodies and machines whose integration has been made possible through the deployment of scientific methodology. Scientific conceptual frameworks have been increasingly applied to the theoretical understanding of war, particularly when they have been associated with influential technologies such as the clock, the engine, or the computer. Conversely, many scientific developments have been stimulated or conditioned by the experience of war, especially since the Second World War and the unprecedented technological and industrial effort that characterised it. The constitution and perpetuation of this scientific way of warfare, marked by an increasingly tight symbiosis between technology, science, and war, are best understood in the context of the state's attempts to make war into a rational instrument of policy. Bousquet also explores the relative benefits (such as providing a unique chain of command over the decision to use nuclear weapons) and disadvantages of centralising and decentralising approaches to military affairs, as exemplified in network-centric theory and in the activities of non-state actors such as insurgents. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Antoine J. BousquetPublisher: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd Imprint: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd Volume: No. 1 ISBN: 9781850659235ISBN 10: 1850659230 Pages: 288 Publication Date: 01 December 2008 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Temporarily unavailable The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you. Table of Contents1: Introduction 2: Technoscientific Regimes of Order in Warfare - A Theoretical and Methodological Framework 3: Mechanistic Warfare and the Clockwork Universe4: Thermodynamic Warfare and the Science of Energy 5: Cybernetics and the Genesis of the Computer 6: Cybernetic Warfare: Computers at War 7: A New Informational Paradigm: Chaos Theory and Complexity Science8: Towards Chaoplexic Warfare? Network-Centric Warfare and the Non-Linear SciencesReviews'The Scientific Way of Warfare is a remarkable work of synthesis, drawing on the contemporary writing of Manuel Castells, Paul Edwards, John Arquilla, and (especially) Martin Van Creveld. The book's broad historical sweep doesn't get caught up in the finer details, though, which might frustrate readers looking for a more detailed military history. Instead, it boils its subject down to four distinct regimes of the scientific way of warfare, each of which is characterized by a specific theoretical and methodological constellation: mechanistic, thermodynamic, cybernetic, and chaoplexic warfare. At the heart of each, he writes, we find an associated paradigmatic technology, respectively the clock, the engine, the computer and the network. '-Wired 'This is a remarkable work. Bousquet does for the history of science as military metaphor what Marc Buchanan in Nexus: The Groundbreaking Science of Networks does for complexity science and networks in a social context: he translates a series of profound scientific developments and thought into an accessible and engaging narrative of technology as artefact and metaphor. Bousquet writes with greater eloquence and texture, while simultaneously treating complex theoretical issues with the light touch that will ensure this book a larger audience.' -- Michael Innes, Syracuse University "'The Scientific Way of Warfare is a remarkable work of synthesis, drawing on the contemporary writing of Manuel Castells, Paul Edwards, John Arquilla, and (especially) Martin Van Creveld. The book's broad historical sweep doesn't get caught up in the finer details, though, which might frustrate readers looking for a more detailed military history. Instead, it boils its subject down to ""four distinct regimes of the scientific way of warfare, each of which is characterized by a specific theoretical and methodological constellation: mechanistic, thermodynamic, cybernetic, and chaoplexic warfare."" At the heart of each, he writes, ""we find an associated paradigmatic technology, respectively the clock, the engine, the computer and the network.""'-Wired ""'This is a remarkable work. Bousquet does for the history of science as military metaphor what Marc Buchanan in Nexus: The Groundbreaking Science of Networks does for complexity science and networks in a social context: he translates a series of profound scientific developments and thought into an accessible and engaging narrative of technology as artefact and metaphor. Bousquet writes with greater eloquence and texture, while simultaneously treating complex theoretical issues with the light touch that will ensure this book a larger audience.' -- Michael Innes, Syracuse University" Author InformationAntoine Bousquet is Lecturer in International Relations, Birkbeck College, University of London. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |