The People in Arms, first published in 2002, takes as its starting point the French levée en masse of 1793, which replaced former theories and regulations concerning the obligation of military service with a universal concept more encompassing in its moral claims than any that had prevailed under the Ancien Régime

Concerned with the mass mobilization of society for war, this study starts with the French levé e en masse of 1793. It replaced former theories and regulations concerning the obligation of military service with a universal concept more encompassing in its moral claims than any that had prevailed under the Old Regime. These papers analyze and compare episodes (in which the distinctive ideological configuration that the original levé e typified plays a leading role).