Military history

Soren Kierkegaard and Existential Realities as tied to Time (and Tense): Implications for Military History

By John T. Kuehn

This hand grenade treads a new path through the environment of flying explosions that are sometimes witnessed at this locale.

So here goes.

First, Kierkegaard 101.   The Danish Christian existentialist philosopher forged a new trail in the evolution of philosophy in the 19th century.  His greatest contribution was the idea of levels of being.

That is, there are levels of being, which are tied to levels of sentience (or lack of it), but for his purposes he confined himself to

In this post for the H-CivWar Author's Blog, Daniel Farrell shares research on and discusses the challenges of interpreting people’s behavior through the lens of age and age differences. Ultimately, how much emphasis should historians place on tangents, however interesting?

During some recent archival research, I came across what I considered to be a somewhat humorous letter. In September 1863, a Marylander, Samuel Freeland, petitioned the War Department to release his son, a Confederate soldier imprisoned at Fort Delaware. His rationale? His son was allegedly weak-minded and easily tricked –