Introduction /Lars Mjøset and Stephen van Holde -- Part I : Historical perspectives -- Killing for the state, dying for the nation : an introductory essay on the life cycle of conscription into Europe's armed forces / Lars Mjøset and Stephen van Holde -- Conscription as ideology : revolutionary France and the nation in arms / Alan Forrest -- Citizen-soldiers, national service and the mass army : the birth of conscription in revolutionary Europe and North America / Meyer Kestnbaum -- Globalization, conscription, and anti-militarism in pre-World War I Europe / David M. Rowe -- Who's using whom? : A comparison of military conscription in Guatemala and Senegal in the first half of the twentieth century / David Carey, Jr. -- Of war and virtue : gender, American citizenship and veterans' benefits after World War II / Gretchen Ritter -- Part II : Contemporary perspectives -- Traditional gendered identities : national service and the all volunteer force / Paul R. Higate -- Recruitment of children as soldiers in sub-Saharan Africa : an ecological analysis / Michael Wessells -- Militia conscription in Sierra Leone : recruitment of young fighters in an African war / Paul Richards -- Conscription and its alternatives / Bjørn Møller -- European farewell to conscription? / Rafael Ajangiz -- Part III : Review symposium section -- Consent, dissent, and patriotism : a summary / Margaret Levi -- State theory, historical sociology and the challenge of the international / John M. Hobson -- Democratic states and societies at war : the global context / Tarak Barkawi -- An analytic narrative of conscription : cases, contexts, and causes / Margaret Levi.