Brutalized combatants, soldier culture and policy: vital episodes in Baroque societies of Western Mediterranean

Abstract

This research analyzes the tension between the highly polarized agents of construction of order in pre-industrial societies such as, on one hand, the civic militias (night watch o rondas nocturnas) and, on the other, the militias that aspired to express the monopolization of the legitimate violence and undergoing a modernization process known as military revolution. However, it puts its emphasis on some of the protagonists of both order and conflict, especially the soldiery, ready to quell problems and in turn to produce others. The analytical perspective of soldiering from singular approaches and vital episodes offers in this research unusual but also ineludible facets and characteristics on the scientific debate on phenomena such as brutalization, post-traumatic stress, postmemory, soldiering culture and even military revolution. These are this article concerns in focus.