A Rabble in Arms

Rock-solid research, cleanly presented, answers for one corner of early New England the timeless question: Who serves, fights, and dies? For all the scholarly attention lavished on that part of American history, Zelner is the first to discover the truth. ~John Shy,author of A People Numerous and Armed

Zelners meticulously researched A Rabble in Arms provides an important corrective to an accepted narrative about democratic egalitarianism in New England towns. Indeed, Zelners findings on the social composition of armed forces, rural democracy and localism in colonial New England correspond with modern works on popular and political culture in early-modern England, as well as Revolutionary and early-national America. ~Guy Chet,author of Conquering the American Wilderness

A carefully researched account of how and why certain men from Essex County, MA, were chosen to fight in King Philip’s War. ~Choice

Zelner provides a valuable corrective to longstanding assumptions and misunderstandings about the English soldiery in King Philip’s War while shedding new light on the powers and values of the elites of the town militia committees….[He] has fundamentally altered the discussion. ~New England Quarterly

Zelner has done meticulous research on the social composition of the Essex men who went to war in 1675-76. He has done a model job of mining sources to show the complexity of social and economic forces at work in raising military expeditions in Essex County. ~The Journal of Military History