War and social policy
War and social policy
This chapter presents Titmuss's ‘War and social policy’ (originally delivered as a lecture at King's College London in 1955 and reprinted here) which takes a longer historical perspective, touching even on the progressive policies of the Ancient Greeks during the Persian invasion of 480 BC. It outlines four stages in the relationship between waging war and the development of welfare provision: in the first stage, the growing scale of war prompted concerns about population quantity during the early and mid-19th century in Britain; in the second state, as the techniques of war became more demanding of soldiers both physically and psychologically, attention shifted from quantity to quality; the Boer War marks the beginning of the third stage, where concern about the fitness of fighting men is generalised to the whole population; the fourth stage is reached when direct participation in war is no longer restricted to soldiers but involves civilians in large numbers.
Keywords: Persian invasion, social policy, war, welfare provision, population quantity, Ancient Greeks, Boer War, soldiers, civilians
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