Read complete books and articles on: Mercenaries

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11 of the Best Books and Articles on: Mercenaries

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns: State-Building and Extraterritorial Violence in Early Modern Europe » Read Now
by Janice E. Thomson. 219 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

The contemporary organization of global violence is neither timeless nor natural, argues Janice Thomson. It is distinctively modern. In this book she examines how the present arrangement of the world into violence-monopolizing sovereign states evolved over the six preceding centuries. All may ...
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The contemporary organization of global violence is neither timeless nor natural, argues Janice Thomson. It is distinctively modern. In this book she examines how the present arrangement of the world into violence-monopolizing sovereign states evolved over the six preceding centuries. All may ... welcome [Thomson] as a fellow-grappler with that protean problem that confronts historians and ... social scientists alike: the shortcomings of international society [today], and the degree to which those shortcomings are attributable to the idea that `sovereign states' have of themselves, and the self-interested ways they tend to behave within it.--Geoffrey Best, The Times Literary Supplement Strike[s] at the heart of [the] assumption that a monopoly on violence is the hallmark of the state, ... [Thomson] is correct when she advises us that `state' and `sovereignty' are more mutable concepts than we might acknowledge or even admit. [A] major contribution to our understanding of international affairs and to the history of state- building.--Francis X. Hartigan, Terrorism and Political Violence Thomson's book is well worth reading. It is historically rich and theoretically erudite.--Michael C. Desch, Mershon International Studies Review
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2.

Greek Mercenaries: From the Late Archaic to Alexander » Read Now
by Matthew Trundle. 196 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This book provides a detailed picture of the life of these Greek mercenaries, analyzing who they were and from what section of society they came. It explores their motivations, their relationships and connections, both with each other and those with whom they served, and shows how mercenaries were...
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This book provides a detailed picture of the life of these Greek mercenaries, analyzing who they were and from what section of society they came. It explores their motivations, their relationships and connections, both with each other and those with whom they served, and shows how mercenaries were recruited, paid and maintained.Matthew Trundle reviews a variety of evidence, including Xenophon's detailed account of how over ten thousand Greeks tried and failed to establish the Persian prince Cyrus on his brother's Imperial throne, the fragments of a fourth century play about the first ever soldier of fortune, and inscriptions prohibiting Athenians from taking service with their neighbours.The result is a fresh look at the significance of mercenaries in ancient Greek society, economy and politics, and their part in the process that shaped the great Empire of Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic world.
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3.

Mercenaries and Mandarins: The Ever-Victorious Army in Nineteenth Century China » Read Now
by Richard J. Smith. 271 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
4.

Airmen without Portfolio: U.S. Mercenaries in Civil War Spain » Read Now
by John Carver Edwards. 152 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Published to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War, this work chronicles the lives and military careers of 12 American mercenary pilots who flew for the Spanish Republican government against the combined air forces of Nationalist Spain, Italy, and Germany. Drawing upon the...
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Published to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War, this work chronicles the lives and military careers of 12 American mercenary pilots who flew for the Spanish Republican government against the combined air forces of Nationalist Spain, Italy, and Germany. Drawing upon the memoirs of these aviators and appropriate secondary scholarship, the author examines each U.S. flyer's political and personal motivation for opposing Fascism as the world prepared for World War II. His findings are as surprising as they are varied. This book also offers an insightful glimpse into the day-to-day lives of these airmen at the squadron level during their eight month tour in Spain. It describes their interaction with their Spanish and Russian comrades, the types of aircraft they flew, the skill and resourcefulness of the enemy pilots they dogfought, the international repercussions of their presence abroad, and the hostile treatment they would incur from their own government.
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5.

Strikebreaking & Intimidation: Mercenaries and Masculinity in Twentieth-Century America » Read Now
by Stephen H. Norwood. 328 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

This is the first systematic study of strikebreaking, intimidation, and anti-unionism in the United States, subjects essential to a full understanding of labor's fortunes in the twentieth century. Paradoxically, the country that pioneered the expansion of civil liberties allowed corporations to...
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This is the first systematic study of strikebreaking, intimidation, and anti-unionism in the United States, subjects essential to a full understanding of labor's fortunes in the twentieth century. Paradoxically, the country that pioneered the expansion of civil liberties allowed corporations to assemble private armies to disrupt union organizing, spy on workers, and break strikes. Using a social-historical approach, Stephen Norwood focuses on the mercenaries the corporations enlisted in their anti-union efforts--particularly college students, African American men, the unemployed, and men associated with organized crime. Norwood also considers the paramilitary methods unions developed to counter mercenary violence. The book covers a wide range of industries across much of the country.
Norwood explores how the early twentieth-century crisis of masculinity shaped strikebreaking's appeal to elite youth and the media's romanticization of the strikebreaker as a new soldier of fortune. He examines how mining communities' perception of mercenaries as agents of a ribald, sexually unrestrained, new urban culture intensified labor conflict. The book traces the ways in which economic restructuring, as well as shifting attitudes toward masculinity and anger, transformed corporate anti-unionism from World War II to the present.
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6.

Outsourcing War: Mercenaries and the Privatization of Peacekeeping, in Journal of International Affairs » Read Now
by Steven Brayton. 28 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...Outsourcing War: mercenaries and the privatization of peacekeeping...the nation-state, from terrorists, mercenaries, guerrillas and warlords to non...sufficiently alarmed...
7.

Mercenaries: What is the Problem?, in New Zealand International Review » Read Now
by Ron Smith. 4 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...Mercenaries: what is the problem? by Ron Smith Ron Smith suggests that disparagement of the use of mercenaries may be misplaced. A traditional understanding of...convention...
8.

Soldiers for Hire, in Contemporary Review » Read Now
by Simon Sheppard. 4 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...front-line operations. According to George Robertson, Secretary of State for Defence, There is no question of reservists being mercenaries; they are a key part of our...
9.

Neighbors & Strangers: The Fundamentals of Foreign Affairs (Chap. 9 "Soldiers, Mercenaries, and Guerrillas") » Read Now
by William R. Polk. 366 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

How important are foreign affairs in the grand scheme of civilization? Do defenses against the invasion of strangers influence the evolution of culture? Drawing on decades of experience in government as well as in the academy, William R. Polk offers a uniquely informed, comprehensive view of foreign...
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How important are foreign affairs in the grand scheme of civilization? Do defenses against the invasion of strangers influence the evolution of culture? Drawing on decades of experience in government as well as in the academy, William R. Polk offers a uniquely informed, comprehensive view of foreign relations. Bridging academic disciplines he treats foreign affairs as they occur in the real world. Instead of separating diplomacy, intelligence and espionage, defense and warfare, trade and aid, intervention and law from one another, he shows how they interact and together form a whole pattern with which we must deal if we are to move safely into the 21st century. But Neighbors and Strangers is not just a guide to the future; Polk draws upon all recorded history, and indeed upon studies of animal and primitive social behavior, and from the entire world for vivid examples to illuminate for the general reader the underlying principles and consistencies that characterize relations with foreigners. Indeed, going deeper into the human experience, Polk documents "fear of the foreigner" as a visceral response so deep-seated and so pervasive that it transcends human memory, individual experience and even logical analysis. More generally, he shows that the tension created by having to live as neighbors with those who, in the definition of contemporaries, were irredeemably alien has been one of the major causes of the rise of civilizations. Accessible and engaging, Neighbors and Strangers is a revelatory look at how foreign affairs are a profound reflection of human nature.
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10.

Mercenaries in Kosovo: The U.S. Connection to the KLA, in The Progressive » Read Now
by Wayne Madsen. 3 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...Mercenaries IN KOSOVO: The U.S. connection to the KLA by WAYNE MADSEN Meeting in the fourth floor conference room of...pinpoint Croatia, Bosnia, and Macedonia as centers of...
11.

Soldiers of Fortune 500: International Mercenaries, in Harvard International Review » Read Now
by Sean Creehan. 2 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...Soldiers of Fortune 500: International Mercenaries by Sean Creehan Mercenary...cause for which they fight. Todays mercenaries still fight for money, but in the...