Like a pop star must do periodically to stay relevant in a changing music market, military history reinvented itself.  It is now influenced heavily by social historians and their concerns.  That is why more books emphasize various aspects of war, including the homefront and the role of minorities in conflicts. 

Which leads me to ask: what is military history?   Is it strictly a narrative about battlefield tactics or something much more comprehensive?   What was military history seems now to be a subpoint within a broadening category.  

That said, many of my peers in grad school believed that battles and strategies were irrelevant to understanding the overall purpose of various wars.  That led the other view (which was in the minority) to say, well, “it was called a WAR for a reason.”   Although I appreciate the changes in military history, my fear is that historians will concentrate so much on various social aspects of the Civil War, for instance, that they will forget when the sieges and battles occurred.   You can’t have a proper understanding of the former without knowledge of the latter.

You can read David Koon’s essay here (I am posting it now because I forgot to provide a link in the earlier post.)