This one-day conference explores how the costs of war have been defined by policymakers, combatants, and societies, as well as by scholars and commentators. The papers will reflect comparatively on definitions of cost, as well as examining the impact, meaning and perception of costs in human, social, political, financial, economic, environmental, technological, moral and symbolic terms.

Programme:

9.00 – Welcome: Guillaume Piketty and Peter H. Wilson
9.15 – Session 1 |Chair: Guillaume Piketty
Mary Cox (Oxford), ‘Non-combatants and the Costs of War: Continuity and Change between the two World Wars’
Roderick Bailey (Oxford), ‘Cultural Heritage and the Costs of War’
Mark Harrison (Oxford), ‘Mitigating the costs of war: medicine and conflict in the 20th and 21st centuries’
10.45-11.15 – Coffee
11.15 – Session 2|Chair: Mark Harrison
Jakob Vogel (Sciences Po), ‘The disputed costs of national conscription. The German Government and the claim for a “Honorary pension” for the veterans of the 1870/71-war in the Kaiserreich’
Clément Collard (Sciences Po), ‘The blood money – Evaluating financial, economic, social and moral costs of Great War disabled soldiers (France, 1914-1930s)’
Michael Joseph (Oxford), ‘Caribbean Veterans and the Colonial “Welfare State” Between the Wars’
12.45-2.00 – Lunch
2.00 – Session 3|Chair: Mario Del Pero
Nick Stargardt (Oxford), ‘The Price of “Sacrifice”: German Preoccupations in WW2’
Guillaume Piketty (Sciences Po), ‘From the 1940 disaster to decolonization: French military through the World War II rolling mill’
Camille Mahé (Sciences Po), ‘“A world-wide catastrophe:” the impact of WWII on French children’
3.30-4.00 – Coffee
4.00 – Session 4|Chair: Nicholas Stargardt
Mario Del Pero (Sciences Po), ‘The Lessons of Bosnia and the Rediscovery of Good and Just Wars’
Richard Caplan (Oxford), ‘Out of the Ashes: Assessing East Timor’s Reconstruction Needs after the 1999 Crisis’
5.00-5.30 – Plenary Discussion | Chair: Peter H. Wilson