[scarmig]

It's the red-headed stepchild of historian specialties, in significant part because popular military histories rarely even qualify as histories, except insofar as they refer to particular dates and historical figures.

See https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6br8ck/why_d... for some context, and a useful example:

> As Peter Paret summarised in 1966 (!?), "Is there another field of historical research (military history) whose practitioners are equally parochial, are as poorly informed on the work of their foreign colleagues...and show as little concern about the theoretical innovations and disputes that today are transforming the study and writing of history?"

[nickik]

But this is also simply a value judgment by historians. The argument that its all about 'culture', like in so many other fields is a very questionable approach. Similar arguments are often made about Political Scicne that we must study 'political culture' and that this will give us information about why things happen.

In both cases I think this is very questionable assumption being made. Individual choice in one battle or one political move can and does change things, and if you want to understanding what happens is absolutely relevant.

Also, things like doctrine that has been studied for a long time, are very related to culture so I don't even fully agree that military historians have ignored culture.

[UncleMeat]

> The argument that its all about 'culture', like in so many other fields is a very questionable approach.

That isn't the argument. Cultural history is indeed trendy, but the bulk of new writing is not cultural history.