The Global War On Civilians: 1905-1945

ERC Advanced Grant that explores the evolution of types of warfare that explicitly targeted the enemy’s civil population during the first half of the 20th century

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Today’s conflicts remind us of the terrible toll of war on noncombatants. Yet we lack historical studies of the evolution of types of warfare that deliberately targeted the enemy’s civil population on a global scale.

WAR-ON-CIVILIANS (ERC Advanced Grant #101141720) researches the development of these practices in several countries around the world from 1905 to 1945. It also charts the interrelated creation of “home fronts,” as each nation sought to defend and mobilize its civilians in increasingly total warfare.

WAR-ON-CIVILIANS spotlights connections of three types: spatial connections among nations, temporal connections between earlier developments (including World War I) and World War II, and connections between offensive attacks on civilians and defensive programs on the home front.