The Great War was the first large-scale conflict in which all combatants relied heavily on innovative science and technology e.g. chemical warfare, tanks and telecommunications. This strand explores how Universities such as Leeds played a major role in supplying the expertise to develop and apply such innovations at the battlefront. Yet while British scientists benefited greatly in the long term from the establishment of State investment in their research, their work did not make warfare more humane or efficient. This strand thus also looks at how hi-tech warfare created new harms for its combatants, new forms of military impasse and led to resource-depleting competitive escalation of innovations.
This strand will be led by Professor Graeme Gooday.