Rebellion, Repression, Reinvention: Mutiny in Comparative Perspective

(Hardback)

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This is the first book to address the topic of mutiny in and of itself, or to present mutiny in a comparative framework. The fourteen contributors, a mixture of military, social, and political historians, examine instances of mutiny that occurred from ancient to modern times and on nearly every continent. Their findings call into question standard definitions of mutiny, while shedding new light on the patterns that mutiny tends to take, as well as the interactions that can occur between mutinous soldiers and surrounding civilian societies. While standard definitions of mutiny emphasize mass defiance by rank-and-file soldiers of the orders of their military superiors, the essays here demonstrate that mutiny can often take other forms. Mutiny could consist of mass desertion, insurgency in the face of competing military and political authorities, or lengthy strings of strikes and assassinations against military and political superiors. The threat of mutiny, furthermore, could be as potent as an actual outbreak. Areas studied include early modern Europe, the Ottoman Empire, the antebellum United States, the British Empire, revolutionary Russia, the emerging nation-states of Latin America, imperial and Communist China, fascist Italy, war-torn Vietnam, and Nasser's Egypt. In the concluding section, contributors assess commemorations of mutiny and how they are modified or distorted in the process of their incorporation into official and popular memory.

Reviews

"[This book] will challenge the preconceptions of military and other historians alike...Mutineers speak for themselves through the narratives in this collection. Thus we learn how they perceived their aims and the means by which they hoped to achieve them. We discover how they viewed themselves and chose to represent themselves and their discontents--as soliders or sailors pitted against unyielding officers, as subject of a distant ruler, as citizens expecting redress from a responsive government, or as a revolutionary vanguard."-Jeremy Black author of The Politics of James Bond
"It is a stimulating book in which the authors have made a major contribution to our understanding of mutiny in multi-contextual analysis. They have given us an expanded conception of mutiny from which further work can continue in this important area."-Lorenzo M. Crowell Associate Professor of History Mississippi State University
"Jane Hathaway has pulled together a truly impressive volume that throws much light not only on mutinies but also on the social politics and organizational cultures of armed forces. State-of-the-art scholarship covers a range that includes India and Jamaica under the British, the American Civil War, the two World Wars, and modern China. In a volume that is conceptually rich, there are also important discussions on the symbolism and remembering of mutiny, for example, the symbolism of slave mutiny. A first-rate collection that deserves widespread attention."-Caroline Finkel

Author Bio

Jane Hathaway is associate professor of Islamic and world history at the Ohio State University.