Abstract
The fact that armed conflicts often reach children in the battle zones is not subject to serious debate. However, the various ways in which this occurs and the long-term effects thereof on the lives of these young victims is something that seldom receives wide-spread attention. In the book Young Soldiers: Why They Choose to Fight, Rachel Brett and Irma Specht attempt to focus on the reasons adolescents join armed conflicts by talking directly with a group of fifty-three children who had engaged in such conflicts before reaching the age of eighteen. For this book, the authors compiled a series of interviews with young people who had participated in armed conflicts within Afghanistan, Columbia, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Sri Lanka. By taking a primary-source approach to gathering such information, the authors promise an in-depth exploration into the driving forces behind the minors' decision to take up arms in the midst of mayhem. Unfortunately, the authors fall short of delivering on their promises in an uninspiring and repetitive narrative, interspersed with anecdotal interview responses. In the end, the reader is left with more questions than answers about why minors volunteer for armed combat.