Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns: State-Building and Extraterritorial Violence in Early Modern Europe

by Janice E. Thomson

Overview

The contemporary organization of global violence is neither timeless nor natural, argues Janice Thomson. It is distinctively modern. In this book she examines how the present arrangement of the world into violence-monopolizing sovereign states evolved over the six preceding centuries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691025711
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	08/11/1996
Series:	Princeton Studies in International History and Politics , #63
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	230
Product dimensions:	7.75(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Janice E. Thomson is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
List of Tables
Introduction	3
Ch. 1	The State, Violence, and Sovereignty	7
The State and Violence in Theory	7
The State and Violence in History	10
Sovereignty in Theory	11
The Institution of Sovereignty	14
The Argument	18
Ch. 2	Nonstate Violence Unleashed	21
Privateering	22
Mercenaries	26
Mercantile Companies	32
Ch. 3	Unintended Consequences	43
The Mediterranean Corsairs	44
Organized Piracy	45
Problems with Mercenarism	54
Problems with Mercantile Companies	59
Ch. 4	Delegitimating State-Authorized Nonstate Violence	69
The Abolition of Privateering	69
The Delegitimation of Mercenarism	77
The Demise of the Mercantile Companies	97
Ch. 5	Suppressing Unauthorized Nonstate Violence	107
Piracy	107
The Rise and Decline of Filibustering	118
Ch. 6	Conclusion	143
Explaining the Transition	146
The State, Sovereignty, and World Politics	149
The Future	152
Notes	155
Bibliography	201
Index	215

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Strike[s] at the heart of [the] assumption that a monopoly on violence is the hallmark of the state, ... [Thomson] is correct when she advises us that ‘state' and ‘sovereignty' are more mutable concepts than we might acknowledge or even admit. [A] major contribution to our understanding of international affairs and to the history of state-building."—Francis X. Hartigan, Terrorism and Political Violence

Hartigan

Strike[s] at the heart of [the] assumption that a monopoly on violence is the hallmark of the state, ... [Thomson] is correct when she advises us that 'state' and 'sovereignty' are more mutable concepts than we might acknowledge or even admit. [A] major contribution to our understanding of international affairs and to the history of state-building.
— Francis X. Hartigan, "Terrorism and Political Violence"

Editorial Reviews

"Janice E. Thomson's title may mislead. She is a political scientist, [but] ... there is much in Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns for historians too; for the many with an interest in state-formation and the not-so-many interested in the development of the interstate-system or, as some of us prefer to call it, international society. The common factor in the discussion of the two processes is the question of the legitimate uses of armed force."

Times Literary Supplement

"All may . . . welcome [Thomson] as a fellow-grappler with that protean problem that confronts historians and . . . social scientists alike: the shortcomings of international society [today], and the degree to which those shortcomings are attributable to the idea that 'sovereign states' have of themselves, and the self-interested ways they tend to behave within it."—-Geoffrey Best, Times Literary Supplement

"Thomson's book is well worth reading. It is historically rich and theoretically erudite."—-Michael C. Desch, Mershon International Studies Review

From the Publisher

Thomson's book is well worth reading. It is historically rich and theoretically erudite.

Mershon International Studies Review - Michael C. Desch

All may . . . welcome [Thomson] as a fellow-grappler with that protean problem that confronts historians and . . . social scientists alike: the shortcomings of international society [today], and the degree to which those shortcomings are attributable to the idea that 'sovereign states' have of themselves, and the self-interested ways they tend to behave within it.

Times Literary Supplement - Geoffrey Best

Janice E. Thomson's title may mislead. She is a political scientist, [but] ... there is much in Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns for historians too; for the many with an interest in state-formation and the not-so-many interested in the development of the interstate-system or, as some of us prefer to call it, international society. The common factor in the discussion of the two processes is the question of the legitimate uses of armed force.

Time Magazines Literary Supplement

Thomson's book is well worth reading. It is historically rich and theoretically erudite.
— Michael C. Desch

Mershon International Studies Review