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A Rabble in Arms: Massachusetts Towns and Militiamen during King Philip's War. ByKyIe F. Zelner. New York: New York University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-08147-9718-1. Figures. Maps. Tables. Appendixes. Notes. Selected bibliography. Index. Pp. xv, 325. $50.00.
In common mythology, men in colonial Massachusetts Bay towns voted, prayed, and fought wars together as a community. However, New England was not a static society, and in the decades following settlement towns became increasingly stratified socially, politically, and economically. King Philip's War (1675-1676), arguably the bloodiest war Americans have fought in terms of percentage of the population involved or killed, came at a time when many areas, particularly along the coast, had lost much of their frontier egalitarianism. Kyle F. Zelner's book provides a well-researched social history and community study of Essex County, on the north shore of Massachusetts Bay, during the war, showing that the forces raised to fight the war reflected that stratification.
While colonial militias were representations of their society due to the almost universal male obligation to serve, expeditions drawn from the militia were not. For Zelner, the key question towns faced was in determining...