Rosen D.M. Child Soldiers in the Western Imagination. From Patriots to Victims

Rutgers, 2015. — 239 p. — ISBN 978–0–8135–6372–5.The Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies is dedicated to increasing our understanding of children and childhoods, past and present, throughout the world. Children’s voices and experiences are central. Authors come from a variety of fields, including anthropology, criminal justice, history, literature, psychology, religion, and sociology. The books in this series are intended for students, scholars, practitioners, and those who formulate policies that affect children’s everyday lives and futures.
This book explores child soldiers through a different lens, and frames the question in another way: What has changed in our cultural imagina-tion that has so profoundly altered our understanding of the compati-bility— or rather, incompatibility— of children, the military, and war? It examines the transformation of our understanding of child soldiers over the past two centuries, by looking both at the presence of children in the military and how they have been imagined in politics, popular culture, lit-erature, and the arts. Though my focus is primarily on the West, especially Great Britain and the United States, I also examine how this transforma-tion has influenced common understandings of child soldiers throughout the international community.Preface and Acknowledgments
Tale of Two Orphans
The Struggle over Child Recruitment
Child Soldiers in World War II
The Child Soldier in Popular Culture
Modern Child Soldiers
The Politics and Culture of Childhood Vulnerability