Publisher's Synopsis
The contributions of this anthology deal with the phenomenon of military mobilization of civilians outside of regular armies. The subject of investigation is thus all those militias, vigilante groups and nationalist or even proletarian "combat groups" which in conventional military and political history were overshadowed by the occupational and conscription armies and which were presented as temporary provisions that had little effect on history. In contrast, this volume is based on the thesis that a comparative analysis of these "irregular" mobilizations can open up new perspectives on the respective society, since the establishment of a militia or a free corps was less so by standardized procedures than by situational constellations of rule, collective ideas of order and the political culture borne. For the first time, these 15 German and two English articles provide a basis for such a comparative analysis of the mobilization of "non-military" in Europe between the Renaissance and the present.
