I have this debate in which I have to support the idea that military history is antiquated and that we should not learn it in school. Any help would be great.
Edit: I'm just letting you all know that I actually support learning military history. I just have to learn how to take a side even if I don't agree with it.
You're probably not going to like what I have to say, but here goes.
Should military history be studied to the exclusion of all other forms of history? No. Have historians in the past focused overly much on military history? Probably. Should military history be totally removed from syllabi? I don't think so.
We are very fortunate to live in an age when a variety of areas of history are comprehensively studied. Social history, economic history, cultural history, women's history, non-European history: all of these are important to developing an understanding of the vastness and complexity of the human experience. But military history forms an important part of that experience! War has always been an aspect of human societies; in some of them, a very important part. By not studying it, you are limiting your understanding.
History of war is more than just battles, generals, and tactics. It is more complex than that and involves gender, social history, cultural history, economic history, colonial studies, and many other fields. On the flip side, we musn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The best kinds of histories to me are those that incorporate many different approaches and subfields, ones that are united more by the question being asked than by the inherent limitations and boundaries of a particular discipline.
So really good military history will OF COURSE incorporate gender, politics, culture etc. Histories of gender or culture (depending on the topic) shouldn't ignore the impact of war in those areas. To presume and hold up these boundaries is false, unhelpful, and ahistoric.
Well it's difficult to study many periods of history without war. I study the Warring States Period in Japan; the name should give away a major part of that period in Japanese history. You'd be learning an incomplete version of events for that period if you removed war. It's a constant. It's the cause and factor behind so many social, economic, political, and cultural changes that went on during that period. For about 150 years, war defined the Japanese Isles.
It'd be almost impossible to study empires like Rome, the Byzantines, the Ottomans, etc without war.
How is military history, and specifically military and not other kinds of history, antiquated?
Isnt the whole point of history that it is by definition antiquated to a greater or lesser extent?
I'd love to give you some pointers but I think you're being asked to defend 1+1=3.