Centre for War Studies-RUHM

Centre for War Studies - RUHM

Driven by our wish to promote lasting initiatives aimed at fostering new, dynamic and open approaches and conceptions in the field of military history, we have registered a non-profit association named Centro de Estudios de la Guerra-RUHM. It was born as a result of an intense collaboration of several years within the Revista Universitaria de Historia Militar which allowed us to gauge some of what we perceive as the basic needs of the particularly sensitive and productive universe of the most advanced military history, internationally known as War Studies. That is why its existence will run parallel to that of the RUHM, meaning that both projects are necessarily complementary with a view to promote different ways of understanding the study of war, focusing on a complex vision of war and the military.

We have committed ourselves to closely linking the analysis of war in its multiple dimensions to the advances and evolution of the main historiographic paradigms, ranging from social through political and economic up to cultural history without forgetting, of course, the number of interesting works published so far, which we intend to vindicate in due course with this second project.

Our main goal is hence to promote a much more complex understanding of war and the military, providing critical and responsible views wherever there remains something to be said and need be to question currently dominant images and narratives. This, of course, requires a professional, careful, constant and well-directed effort that involves bringing together historians fully or tangentially dedicated to the study of war and the military -an object of study, indeed, of central interest in terms of timeliness and media impact-, and creating as many new networks and meeting points between them as possible. Such is precisely the initial purpose of this new project, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to build bridges of dialogue and debate with civil society as a whole in a profitable and fruitful way for both parties, while always highlighting the usefulness and need of our respective personal works.

In this sense, we intend to orient our activities in two directions that must necessarily interrelate, as it will manifest itself in coming years. On the one hand, regarding the more purely academic dimension, it would be imperative to set an open space for debate in which projects are debated, forged and consulted, both individually (predoctoral and postdoctoral scholarships, for instance) and between research groups (research projects in which military history or war studies occupy an important place); a space in which works in progress may also be discussed, from reports to doctoral theses through articles and chapters of already finished collective works, as a permanent seminar of sorts; a space working simultaneously as a solidarity network to share research resources (articles, fragments, sources, etc.), relevant information (scholarships, job offers, etc.) and, of course, to promote the internationalisation of our academic works (congresses, connections in different historiographic spaces, etc.). On the other hand, regarding our relationship to civil society, citizens and public and private institutions, we are at their entire disposal as a space to turn to in search of specialised advice for the implementation of all sorts of cultural projects, exhibitions, documentary preservation, elaboration of tourist guides focused on the military historical heritage and also to give conferences, talks, seminars or film cycles on war history and the military world in any of its dimensions.

For more information, we kindly encourage you to use the following email: secretaria@ruhm.es, and we will gladly respond to any of you who may be interested in collaborating with us, as well as, of course, to any doubts, questions or suggestions. For our part, we will inform you of any new initiatives of general interest for war historians on our social media and our website.