Synopses & Reviews
Despite the growing presence of intercultural couples in the United States and worldwide, their stories often go untold. In
Intercultural Couples, Jill Bystydzienski provides a rare and comprehensive understanding of the multidimensional experiences of intercultural couples, drawing mainly upon in-depth interviews with persons living in domestic partnerships—heterosexual and same-sex—representing a broad spectrum of ethnic, racial, religious, socioeconomic, and national backgrounds. In these relationships, each partner brings a different set of cultural experiences that may include gender expectations, ideas about appropriate relations with family members, childrearing, financial matters, and general lifestyle. Sometimes differences may be unrecognized or seen as minimal, yet some can become salient, forming the basis for conflict, enriching diversity, or both.
Bystydzienski's findings show that, despite hurtful incidents from persons outside the couple partnerships, intercultural unions are a source of satisfaction for the partners, and are able to bridge divisions and reduce inequalities between persons of diverse backgrounds, providing a rich portrait of how these couples negotiate their identities as individuals and as couples in relation to the outside world.
Review
“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
Review
“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,
Review
“Zelners meticulously researched A Rabble in Arms
- Guy Chet, author of Conquering the American Wilderness
Review
“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,
Review
“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
“A carefully researched account of how and why certain men from Essex County, MA, were chosen to fight in King Philip's War.”
- Choice
“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
Review
"All in all, this is an impressive deconstruction of the populist historical view of colonial militias as a group of citizen soldiers and willing volunteers; it ably demonstrates how far the personal interests of elite groups could be placed above genuine military needs of a conflict with often devastatingly damaging outcomes."
“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.”
“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.”
“A carefully researched account of how and why certain men from Essex County, MA, were chosen to fight in King Philip's War.”
“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.”
Review
“A carefully researched account of how and why certain men from Essex County, MA, were chosen to fight in King Philip's War.”
-Choice,
Review
“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
Synopsis
While it lasted only sixteen months, King Philip's War (1675-1676) was arguably one of the most significant of the colonial wars that wracked early America. As the first major military crisis to directly strike one of the Empire's most important possessions: the Massachusetts Bay Colony, King Philip's War marked the first time that Massachusetts had to mobilize mass numbers of ordinary, local men to fight. In this exhaustive social history and community study of Essex County, Massachusetts's militia, Kyle F. Zelner boldly challenges traditional interpretations of who was called to serve during this period.
Drawing on muster and pay lists as well as countless historical records, Zelner demonstrates that Essex County's more upstanding citizens were often spared from impressments, while the “rabble” — criminals, drunkards, the poor— were forced to join active fighting units, with town militia committees selecting soldiers who would be least missed should they die in action. Enhanced by illustrations and maps, A Rabble in Arms shows that, despite heroic illusions of a universal military obligation, town fathers, to damaging effects, often placed local and personal interests above colonial military concerns.
About the Author
Jill M. Bystydzienski is Professor and Chair of Womens Studies at Ohio State University and co-editor of Forging Radical Alliances across Difference: Coalition Politics for the New Millennium.