Conflict and Soldiers’ Literature in Early Modern Europe

Paul Scannell’s book covers a wide time period in a narrow structure—just four chapters, topped and tailed with a fourteen-page introduction and an equally brief conclusion. Scannell’s aim is to develop our understanding of the wars of the early modern period through the writings of those involved. Naturally, this impinges upon the nature of the continuum of warfare and the ‘military revolution’ as expressed in these published works. Scannell has selected chiefly the works written by soldiers who had seen active service. There were others, such as John Cruso, credited with introducing Dutch military theory into Britain, but whose military service was confined to the Norfolk Trained Bands. Likewise, Scannell concentrates on works which made it into print, rather than those circulated in manuscript. The point is to look at soldiers’ writings in their own right as a valuable contribution to the study of early modern history; Scannell suggests that other historians have generally been cautious in their use of soldiers’ writings and he intends this work to put this right

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Literature · Military history · Military service · Modern warfare · Period (music · Point (geometry · Political science · Service (business · Classics · History · Law · Military History and Strategy · Philosophy · War, Ethics, and Justification