Soldiers' Lives through History - The Early Modern World

The colorful beginnings of the modern Western soldier are told: his evolution from mercenary to professional, the weapons he carried, the way he fought, and how he lived, from the late fifteenth century and the introduction of gunpowder in battle to the start of the Age of Revolution.

Two distinguished historians tell the story of the early modern soldier of Europe, a figure often misunderstood, in the period spanning from 1494 to 1789.

Two distinguished historians tell the story of the early modern soldier of Europe, a figure often misunderstood, in the period spanning from 1494 to 1789. He is the freebooting Landsknecht of the sixteenth century, swaggering in dilapidated finery through the ruins he and his kind created. He is the mercenary of the Thirty Years War in the seventeenth century, rootless and masterless, brutalizing civilians for a few coins, destroying civilization's works for the pleasure of it. He is the uniformed automaton of the eighteenth century, initiative beaten out of him, fit to do no more than endure battles and floggings until he pitched into an anonymous gr