In a major contribution to our understanding of the role of the military in politics, Amos Perlmutter offers a historical, comparative, and theoretical analysis covering close to fifty modern states on four continents over a time span of 200 years. It is the most comprehensive and significant work in this field for twenty years.

In addition to presenting a wealth of data from over a hundred case studies, Perlmutter develops a distinctive and original theory. He stresses the political nature of civil-military relations and argues that the single most valid explanation for military intervention is the political motivation of politically oriented officers. He therefore takes issue with prevailing theories that attribute military intervention to sociological, social, psychological, and organizational causes. In a section of the book dealing with the revolutionary soldier—in Israel and Communist China, for example—Perlmutter introduces a new type of soldier and analyzes for the first time its role in politics.

The book will clearly interest students of comparative politics, revolution, political theory, the politics of developing areas, the politics of modernization, and of course civil-military relations.