Armies of the Young: Child Soldiers in War and Terrorism

David M. Rosen

Published by Rutgers University Press 2005

Armies of the Young

Child Soldiers in War and Terrorism

David M. Rosen

In the series Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies

https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813537832

Overview
Contents

About this book

Children have served as soldiers throughout history. They fought in the American Revolution, the Civil War, and in both world wars. They served as uniformed soldiers, camouflaged insurgents, and even suicide bombers. Indeed, the first U.S. soldier to be killed by hostile fire in the Afghanistan war was shot in ambush by a fourteen-year-old boy.

Does this mean that child soldiers are aggressors? Or are they victims? It is a difficult question with no obvious answer, yet in recent years the acceptable answer among humanitarian organizations and contemporary scholars has been resoundingly the latter. These children are most often seen as especially hideous examples of adult criminal exploitation.

In this provocative book, David M. Rosen argues that this response vastly oversimplifies the child soldier problem. Drawing on three dramatic examples-from Sierra Leone, Palestine, and Eastern Europe during the Holocaust-Rosen vividly illustrates this controversial view. In each case, he shows that children are not always passive victims, but often make the rational decision that not fighting is worse than fighting.

With a critical eye to international law, Armies of the Young urges readers to reconsider the situation of child combatants in light of circumstance and history before adopting uninformed child protectionist views. In the process, Rosen paints a memorable and unsettling picture of the role of children in international conflicts.

Author / Editor information

David M. Rosen is a professor of anthropology and law at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Reviews

No thinking person, no media commentator, no political leader can afford to be without this book-not if they care about the truth and want to understand one of the more awful realities of our time. It will stir you to action on behalf of the world's vulnerable children.

— Phyllis Chesler, author of The New-Anti-Semitism

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Chapter 1. War and Childhood Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 2. Fighting for Their Lives: Jewish Child Soldiers of World War II Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
Chapter 3. Fighting for Diamonds: The Child Soldiers of Sierra Leone Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
Chapter 4. Fighting for the Apocalypse: Palestinian Child Soldiers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
Chapter 5. The Politics of Age Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	132
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
Selected Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193