Boëne B. (2014) Les sciences sociales et l’armée: objets, approches, perspectives,
Paris: Presses Universitaires Paris Sorbonne. 277 p. ISBN 978-2-84050-956-1 Библиографическое описание: DOI: 10.17323/1728-192X-2015-4-195-198.

Evgeny Blinov

Associated Member, ERRAPHIS, Université de Toulouse 2

Adress: 5 allées Antonio Machado, F-31058 Toulouse cedex 9, France

E-mail: moderator1979@hotmail.com

One of the protagonists of Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel The White Guard, an old school Stabskapitän, declared that he was able to read War and Peace to the end because it was written “not by some kind of a blockhead but by an artillery officer.” Although Bernard Boëne, the author of Social Sciences and the Army: Objects, Approaches, Perspectives and a leading French military sociologist, made no career in the army, he has for many years been the director of teaching and research at Saint-Cyr, the nation’s supreme military academy. The author’s competence in the subject, thus, makes reading this book a rewarding experience and provides it with the credibility, so often lacking in the attempts of mere “social scientists” to write about war and its impact on society. Currently professor Emeritus at University of Rennes and the chancellor of Geneva Graduate School of Governance, Bernard Boëne is also the chief editor of the professional review Res Militaris, a holder of the prestigious Morris Janowitz Career Achievement Award named after one of the founders of military sociology, and the author of a hundred of articles on various aspects of military action. His study provides an ambitious theoretical synthesis of what has been achieved in the field of military sociology in the past century.