Look at the news long enough and you will see children in uniform toting rifles, children in camouflage sniping at occupying troops, children in school uniforms vowing to serve as suicide bombers. The startling thing about these situations is that they date back throughout history. Rosen (anthropology and law, Fairleigh Dickenson U.) goes far beyond emotional reactions to seek the motivations of the child soldiers themselves in three case studies, namely the Jewish child soldiers of the Second World War and the children fighting in various capacities in the conflicts in Sierra Leone and Palestine. He finds that children may not be victims but instead have reasoned that the only thing worse than fighting is not fighting, and that fighting also provides an element of control, self-determination, and in some cases, leads to survival. He urges policy-makers to also study the cultural and historical contexts of individual situations. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)