Red Coat, Green Machine

How different were the men who fought at Blenheim and at Goose Green? Is there a human thread that connects the redcoat of 300 years ago with the British soldier of today? What would they find in common if they faced a common foe?

This book is about the people in the Army, and the very human interactions between them in their daily lives. It marries the disciplines of Social Anthropology and Military History to provide a novel way of looking at the anatomy of the British Army at unit level from an entirely human perspective. Concentrating on the attitudes, expectations, and concerns expressed by the people involved, it sets out a set of simple models of life at regimental duty that can be used to describe, analyze and explain their behaviour over the past 300 years.

The book is grounded on what soldiers of all ranks have said, using the author's research interview material for the modern witnesses, and memoirs, diaries, and letters (published and unpublished) for earlier ones.

Auteur

Charles Kirke is Lecturer in Military Anthropology and Human Factors at Cranfield University, UK.

Contenu

Areas that this model illuminates include:

• Officer/soldier relationships.
• Attitudes towards discipline and keeping (or bending) the rules.
• Formal and informal communications within the unit.
• The Regimental System, and the aspect of 'belonging'.
• Attitudes towards the craft and skills of 'soldiering'.
• The effects of the wider British society on life in the unit.