The Hoover History Lab and its Military History Working Group hosted a book talk with Hoover Research Fellow Lucian Staiano-Daniels on his new book, The War People: A Social History of Common Soldiers during the Era of the Thirty Years War on April 15, 2025, at 12:00 p.m. - 1:15 p.m. PT.
Staiano-Daniels’ book uses the transnational story of a single regiment to examine how ordinary soldiers, military women, and officers negotiated their lives within the chaos and uncertainty of the seventeenth century. Raised in Saxony by Wolf von Mansfeld in spring 1625 in the service of the King of Spain, the Mansfeld Regiment fought for one and a half years in northern Italy before collapsing, leaving behind a trail of dead civilians, murder, internal lawsuits … and copious amounts of paperwork. Their story reveals the intricate social world of seventeenth-century mercenaries and how this influenced how they lived and fought.
Through this rich micro-historical case study, Staiano-Daniels sheds new light on key seventeenth-century developments such as the military revolution and the fiscal-military state, which is supported by statistical analysis drawn from hundreds of records from the Thirty Years War. This pathbreaking book unifies the study of war and conflict with social history.
