Soldiers And Gentlemen

The year is 1808, and Hamish Williams is a 'gentlemen volunteer' in the 106th regiment of foot, a man serving with the ranks but living with the officers, and uncomfortable in both worlds: looked down on by those with the money or influence to buy their rank, and distrusted by the common soldiers who know he is not one of them. But Williams is determined to prove by deeds alone that he is a man worthy of advancement, and when the 106th embarks for Portugal to begin what will become known as the Peninsula War against Napoleon, he knows his chance of glory is at hand. Soon he is receiving a sharp lesson in the realities of war, as the 106th undergoes a bloody baptism at the hands of the French - and he realises that his single-minded devotion to honour may not, after all, be the quickest route to promotion. Combining the vivid detail of a master historian with the engaging characters and pulsating action of a natural storyteller, TRUE SOLDIER GENTLEMAN is the first volume in what promises to be a classic series.

In Soldiers and Gentlemen, Westerman explores the stories of the vitally important, yet often forgotten, Australian commanding officers.

Soldiers and Gentlemen: Australian Battalion Commanders in the Great War, 1914?1918 is the first book to examine the background, role and conduct of Australian commanding officers during the First World War. Though they held positions of power, commanding officers inhabited a leadership no man's land - they exerted great influence over their units, but they were also largely excluded from the decision-making process and faced the same risks as junior officers on the battlefield. A soldier's well-being and success in battle was heavily dependent on a commanding officer's competence, but little is known about the men who filled these roles. In his groundbreaking book, William Westerman explores the stories of the vitally important, yet often forgotten, commanding officers. Theirs is a story of the timeless challenges of military leadership, and this book prevents them from slipping from the public memory to enhance our knowledge of the conflict.

New essays on chivalry, warfare, and treason and politics in the middle ages. Chivalric culture, soldiers and soldiering, and treason, politics and the court form the main themes of this volume - as is appropriate in a book which honours the distinguished medievalist Maurice Keen. The essays, all by eminentscholars in the field, cover such topics as nobility and mobility in Anglo-Saxon society; chivalry and courtliness; the crusade and chivalric ideas; chivalry and art; devotional literature; piety and chivalry; military strategy;the victualling of castles; Bertrand du Guesclin; soldiers' wives; military communities in fourteenth-century England; military and administrative service among the fifteenth-century gentry; treason, disinvestiture and the disgracing of arms; and treason in Lancastrian Normandy. Overall, they reflect the range of the honoree's interests, the depth of his scholarship, the international flavour of his work, and his unique contribution to historical scholarship. The volume includes appreciations from a former pupil and colleagues, and ends with a bibliography of his work. CONTRIBUTORS: LINNIE RAWLINSON, MARTIN CONWAY, SIMON SKINNER, JAMES CAMPBELL, DAVID CROUCH, CHRISTOPHERTYERMAN, CRAIG TAYLOR, ADRIAN AILES, NIGEL SAUL, JEREMY CATTO, ROWENA ARCHER, CHRISTOPHER ALLMAND, MICHAEL PRESTWICH, MICHAEL JONES, ANNE CURRY, ANDREW AYTON, SIMON PAYLING, PETER COSS, MATTHEW STRICKLAND, JULIET BARKER, MALCOLM VALE, GERALD HARRISS, MARY KEEN

Given in honor of Dr. David Romei by the Aggieland Rotary Club of Bryan-College Station.

Based on unprecedented access to the Ghanaian military barracks and inspired by the recent resurgence of coups in West Africa, Agyekum assesses why and how the Ghana Armed Forces were transformed from an organization that actively orchestrated coups into an institution that accepts the authority of the democratically elected civilian government. Focusing on the process of professionalization of the Ghanaian military, this ethnography based monograph examines both historical and contemporary themes, and assesses the shift in military personnel from ‘Buga Buga’ soldiers – uneducated, lower-class soldiers, human rights abusers – to a more ‘modern’ fighting force.

“A seminal work” on class divisions within the Union Army—“One of the best examples of . . . scholarship on the social history of Civil War soldiers” (The Journal of Southern History). During the Civil War, the Union army appeared cohesive enough to withstand four years of grueling war against the Confederates and to claim victory in 1865. But fractiousness bubbled below the surface of the North’s presumably united front. Internal fissures were rife within the Union army: class divisions, regional antagonisms, ideological differences, and conflicting personalities all distracted the army from quelling the Southern rebellion. In this highly original contribution to Civil War and gender history, Lorien Foote reveals that these internal battles were fought against the backdrop of manhood. Clashing ideals of manliness produced myriad conflicts, as when educated, refined, and wealthy officers (“gentlemen”) found themselves commanding a hard-drinking group of fighters (“roughs”)—a dynamic that often resulted in violence and even death. Based on extensive research into previously ignored primary sources, The Gentlemen and the Roughs uncovers holes in our understanding of the men who fought the Civil War and the society that produced them. Finalist for the 2011 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize