Description: An investigation on the circumstances that have produced starkly different systems of recruiting and employing soldiers in different parts of the globe over the last 500 years.
Brief description: Erik-Jan Zürcher is director of the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, as well as member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Turkish Studies at Leiden University.
Review Quotes: "Historians have long overlooked the labour involved in soldiering. But now, with the publication of Fighting for a Living, the world of military workers is brought to the forefront of scholarly inquiry. The editors throw a critical shining light on the nature of war and the nature of work for the millions of individuals who have contributed their labour, and often their lives, for the militaries of the world." Nathan Wise, School of Humanities at the University of New England, Australia