Overview

What if battlefield courage is not timeless-but engineered? In The Military Ideal: Courage and Its Consequences, historian Walter Malausky dismantles the myth that courage is a natural human virtue. Instead, he shows that courage-who displays it, who defines it, and who is punished for lacking it-has always been shaped by military institutions for their own needs. Drawing on Roman virtus, medieval chivalry, Napoleonic medals, modern bureaucracies of valor, and the psychological revolutions of PTSD and Moral Injury, Malausky reveals a powerful pattern: Armies build the courage they need, and they punish the courage they don't. Based on the comprehensive manuscript The Military Ideal: Courage and Its Consequences, this book traces the evolution of battlefield virtue from: Rome's engineered discipline, where bravery served the formation, not the individual The chivalric aristocracy, where courage became a personal currency of honor The modern nation-state, which democratized valor through medals and bureaucracy World War I's firing squads, where fear was criminalized as ""cowardice"" The medicalization of trauma, replacing the coward with the patient Moral Injury, which challenges the entire legal-moral framework of military obedience Through history, law, psychology, and ethics, Malausky exposes the uncomfortable truth: militaries can command obedience, but they can never fully control the mind. A definitive work for readers of military history, psychology, ethics, and anyone seeking to understand how courage is constructed-and how punishment enforces it.

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