Mercenaries: A Guide to Private Armies and Private Military Companies provides a comprehensive survey and guide to the mercenary forces, entrepreneurs, and corporations that are a major component of warfare today. Security, military advice, training, logistics support, policing, technological expertise, intelligence, transportation—all are outsourced to a greater or lesser degree in the U.S. military—while countries as diverse as Saudi Arabia and Australia rely on privatization in one form or another.

This comprehensive one-volume work covers the full range of mercenaries active on the international military scene today, including a concise history of mercenaries and private armies on land, sea, and in the air. 

Key Features

• Illuminating sidebars include biographies of major figures, key statistics, historical and current documents, contracts, and legislation on private armies and outsourced military services. 


• Each chapter includes a bibliography of books, journal articles, and web sites.


• A general bibliography concludes the entire work.

Mercenaries is a must-have reference for academic libraries, public libraries, and any social science, governmental, or non-governmental reference collection.