Historical Scholarship and Strategic Studies: A Relationship Study

Purpose: The idea of placing two disciplines side by side in order to establish some level of scholarly links and interconnectedness has gained due attention in recent times. Emerging challenges and the urgent need to salvage the dwindling fortunes that is usually associated with some academic disciplines make it expedient for an academic innovation that is sustainable. Until the mid-19th century, disciplines were studied in their own rights without a conscious effort to overlap. In the discipline of history, the institutional changes occasioned by the University curriculum review in Cambridge University during the same era marked a turning point in the development of historical scholarship. Hence, sub-disciplines began to be evolved from the parent discipline of history. Consequently, sub-disciplines like Economic History, Social History, and so on began to emerge. The multiplicity of these sub-disciplines has further placed on the historian the responsibility to not only justify the reason(s) for the offshoot, but to demonstrate the relationship between history as a discipline and the sub-discipline. This study argues that Strategic Studies is a recent discipline when considered with other disciplines that pegged alongside History as an academic field. It is against this backdrop, that this study looks at the discipline of history bearing in mind at what point it became expedient for a diversification in the domain of history. The study also attempts a brief historical development of the sub discipline of strategic studies. This study further argues that, there is a nexus between history and strategic studies which is mutually reinforcing. Methodology: The study adopts a qualitative approach in analyzing the scholarly relationship between the two realms with the domain of history as the epicenter. Findings: historical approach to strategic/security studies has always been and still remains a very powerful analytical tool provided it is handed with the necessary care. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study recommends that strategic studies is a recent discipline that should be considered as a disciplines that pegged alongside History as an academic field.