Review of Erik-Jan Zürcher, ed., 'Fighting for a Living: A Comparative History of Military Labour 1500-2000' (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2013). pp. 688. €79.00 cloth.

Abstract

Military history and labour history have long stood at odds with each other. Throughout the past, military forces have generally specialised in 'destructive' practices, focusing on the destruction of an "enemy," and including in that purview the destruction of physical structures, social structures, and variably intentionally and unintentionally, the livelihoods of people within those structures. In contrast, labour forces have generally specialised in 'constructive' practices, for it is through work that people build those structures and livelihoods. Labour historians have only recently recognised that behind those destructive practices of the military are men and women who are actually working. Such recognition has seen the gradual emergence, over the past two decades, of an approach to history that is increasingly documenting the nature of labour in the environment of the military, otherwise known as "military labour."