A. HAMISH ION is Professor of History at the Royal Military College of Canada. He is a specialist in modern Japanese history. His most recent monograph is The Cross and the Rising Sun: The British Protestant Missionary Movement in Japan, Korea and Taiwan, 1865-1945 (1993). He has recently edited with B.J.C. McKercher, Military Heretics: The Unorthodox in Policy and Strategy (Praeger, 1994).KEITH NEILSON is Professor of History and Head of the History Department at the Royal Military College of Canada. He has written Strategy and Supply: Anglo-Russian Relations 1914-1917. He is the editor with B.J.C. McKercher of Go Spy the Land: Military Intelligence in History (Praeger, 1992). Neilson has published a wide range of articles on British diplomatic and military history.

• IntroductionElites in Military History by Martin KitchenElite Forces in the Ancient World by Arther FerrillDaimyo in the Sengoku Period, 1467-1590 by Shuzo UyenakaThe Royalist Armies in the English Civil War, 1642-1646 by Ian RoyPrussian Guards in the 18th Century by Hans W. KochThe French Foreign Legion: The Mystique of Elitism by Douglas PorchGerman Army Elites in World Wars I and II by Dennis E. ShowalterBibliographyIndex