you must research an innovation in military experience and practice (a technique, a weapon, an organization, etc.) and explore how it evolved from American society, describe its military success (or failure), and what factors promoted and/or limited its success.

In discussing the innovation, you should remember these themes: Precedent, Connections, Legacy. In addition, the final two pages of each paper should discuss the innovation in terms of its interaction with the variables: capacity, calculation, and culture. In other words, the paper has two parts: a historical research component, in which you describe where the innovation came from, what it is, why it was successful (or not). The second part should discuss it analytically, in terms of the interaction of that innovation with calculation, capacity, and culture perhaps summed up best with the questions: Did this work (or not) and why?