"Bayonets for Hire, strange book" Topic

By William Urban. As my title indicates it is a peculiar book. Covering the period of 1550-1789 it purports to cover mercernaries over that time. I picked up a copy at half price books for 3 dollars and started in on the chapter on the WSS. There were a few brief paragraphs on some of the hired units, mostly Irish with the rest of the chapter being an elementary coverage of the war, mostly focusing on Blenheim.

What made the reading even more strange is that despite being published in 2007 it read like something published in the late 19th, early 20th century. Lots of snide references to French generals' sexual predlictions and the insidious Jesuit advisors to James II. I did find interesting the theme of "our Irish are rubbish" while the French's were awesome in an otherwise very Anglo-centric accounting.

After that one chapter I have put it aside for a while. Perhaps I will go back and see if the other chpaters are better. For the amount invested I look at it as a humorous diversion from painting.

Thanks for the warning, Joe. Looked up William Urban, an old college professor type, so the book may not be a case of "publish or perish" where you fall asleep slogging through somebody's doctoral thesis, but it could go a ways towards explaing the old-fashioned style.

I laughed at some of the comments about Urban on "RateMyProfessors.com". For example:"Talk about tenure abuse. His lecture notes are so old the paper they are written on is yellowing."

link

A while ago I acquired the same book, hoping to find some background information on mercenary soldiering placed into context. Like Waco I found it hard to read through the book because of the strange style of writing.

Reading the comments – "I sometimes wondered if he was still alive because he was so quiet. He is unclear, a deuschbag, and I don't like him. This guy needs to hang'em up because he isn't getting the job done. Father Time aka Wild Bill….you need to end it now so that everyone can be happy." – very insightful! How about rate your student – the aforementioned probably sounds like a nitwit (who cannot spell!)- one of those arrogant young people, who fails to realise that one day he will be old too.