> Colley shows, shrewdly enough, how rulers desperate for cannon-fodder devised a connection between soldiering and the new idea of citizenship. Join the army,

> Colley shows, shrewdly enough, how rulers desperate for cannon-fodder devised a connection between soldiering and the new idea of citizenship. Join the army, and you will be entitled to a vote and to the protection of new-fangled constitutional rights, all set down in writing. This sounds like Starship Troopers. Can you quote a constitution where being a soldier gives you rights to vote, and where the chance of being killed (and generally brutalised) was taken up widespreadly by the general public? It's my impression that for several hundred years when even the idea of voting became widespread, most people were not going to put their lives on the line for it.