Author : Serge Yalichev
Publisher : Constable & Robinson
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 29,94 MB
Release : 1997
Category : History
ISBN :
With a blend of narrative and analysis, this book explores the extent to which mercenaries have been used, from Sumer to Rome, and the reasons governments hired them when they could conscript native citizens.
Author : Col. Michael Lee Lanning
Publisher : Presidio Press
Page : 294 pages
File Size : 34,41 MB
Release : 2007-12-18
Category : History
ISBN : 0307416046
SOLDIERS OF $$ Privateers, contract killers, corporate warriors. Contract soldiers go by many names, but they all have one thing in common: They fight for money and plunder rather than liberty, God, or country. Now acclaimed author and war vet Michael Lee Lanning traces the compelling history of these fighting machines–from the “Sea Peoples” who fought for the pharaohs’ greater glory to today’s soldiers for hire from private military companies (PMCs) in Iraq and Afghanistan. What emerges is a fascinating account of the men who fight other people’s wars–the Greeks who built an empire for Alexander the Great, the Nubians who accompanied Hannibal across the Alps, the Irish who became the first to go global in their search for work. Soldiers of fortune have always had the power to change the course of war, and Lanning examines their pivotal roles in individual battles and in the rise and fall of empires. As the employment of contract soldiers spreads in Iraq and America’s War on Terrorism–the U.S. paid $30 billion to PMCs in 2003 alone–Mercenaries offers a valuable inside look at a system that appears embedded in our nation’s future. Includes eight pages of photographs
Author : Stephen English
Publisher : Frontline Books
Page : 212 pages
File Size : 49,69 MB
Release : 2012
Category : History
ISBN : 9781848843301
This book examines the role of the mercenaries and their influence on the wars of the Classical world down to the death of Alexander the Great. It also looks at the social and economic pressures that drove tens of thousands to make a living of fighting for the highest bidder, despite the intense dangers of the ancient battlefield.
Author : G. T. Griffith
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 353 pages
File Size : 27,80 MB
Release : 2014-08-14
Category : History
ISBN : 1107419301
Originally published in 1935, this book provides a detailed history of the employment of mercenaries in the Hellenistic period. Griffith discusses how and why mercenaries were used after the death of Alexander the Great by the Seleucids, Ptolemies, the Greek League and other powers active before the rise of Rome, and includes a section contrasting the pay and maintenance of mercenaries in the classical period with that of the Hellenistic period. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in ancient history and one of the ancient world's most important professions.
Author : Matthew Trundle
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 219 pages
File Size : 13,47 MB
Release : 2004-09-09
Category : Education
ISBN : 1134304331
Greek Mercenaries is an analysis of the political, social and economic aspects of classical Greek mercenary service.
Author : Hunt Janin
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 219 pages
File Size : 25,60 MB
Release : 2014-01-10
Category : History
ISBN : 1476612072
In medieval and Renaissance Europe, mercenaries--professional soldiers who fought for money or other rewards--played violent, colorful, international roles in warfare, but they have received relatively little scholarly attention. In this book a large number of vignettes portray their activities in Western Europe over a period of nearly 900 years, from the Merovingian mercenaries of 752 through the Thirty Years' War, which ended in 1648. Intended as an introduction to the subject and drawing heavily on contemporary first-person accounts, the book creates a vivid but balanced mosaic of the many thousands of mercenaries who were hired to fight for various employers.
Author : William Urban
Publisher : Pen and Sword
Page : 286 pages
File Size : 47,38 MB
Release : 2015-11-30
Category : History
ISBN : 1848328559
The Middle Ages were a turbulent and violent time, when the fate of nations was most often decided on the battlefield, and strength of arms was key to acquiring and maintaining power. Feudal oaths and local militias were more often than not incapable of providing the skilled and disciplined warriors necessary to keep the enemy at bay. It was the mercenary who stepped in to fill the ranks. A mercenary was a professional soldier who took employment with no concern for the morals or cause of the paymaster. But within these confines we discover a surprising array of men, from the lowest-born foot soldier to the wealthiest aristocrat the occasional clergyman, even. What united them all was a willingness, and often the desire, to fight for their supper.In this benchmark work, William Urban explores the vital importance of the mercenary to the medieval power-broker, from the Byzantine Varangian Guard to fifteenth-century soldiers of fortune in the Baltic. Through contemporary chronicles and the most up-to-date scholarship, he presents an in-depth portrait of the mercenary across the Middle Ages.
Author : Herbert William Parke
Publisher :
Page : 243 pages
File Size : 18,40 MB
Release : 1970
Category : Greece
ISBN :
Author : B. Dexter Hoyos
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 321 pages
File Size : 14,50 MB
Release : 2007
Category : History
ISBN : 9004160760
A major rebellion against Carthage of mercenary troops and oppressed North African subjects almost ended her existence, a story vividly recorded by the historian Polybius. "Truceless War" reconstructs what happened and why, and the role of Carthage's rescuer Hamilcar Barca.
Author : Richard Miles
Publisher : Penguin
Page : 622 pages
File Size : 29,14 MB
Release : 2011-07-21
Category : History
ISBN : 1101517034
The first full-scale history of Hannibal's Carthage in decades and "a convincing and enthralling narrative." (The Economist ) Drawing on a wealth of new research, archaeologist, historian, and master storyteller Richard Miles resurrects the civilization that ancient Rome struggled so mightily to expunge. This monumental work charts the entirety of Carthage's history, from its origins among the Phoenician settlements of Lebanon to its apotheosis as a Mediterranean empire whose epic land-and-sea clash with Rome made a legend of Hannibal and shaped the course of Western history. Carthage Must Be Destroyed reintroduces readers to the ancient glory of a lost people and their generations-long struggle against an implacable enemy.
