HarperCollins Redcoat, Non-Fiction, Paperback, Richard Holmes
225 ratings
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Price: £12.99
Brand: HarperCollins
Description: Magnificent history of the common British soldier from 1700 to 1900 by one of Britain's best-known and accomplished military writers and broadcasters. Red Coat is non-fiction Sharpe, filled with anecdote and humour as well as historical analysis. HarperCollins Redcoat, Non-Fiction, Paperback, Richard Holmes - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: Harper Collins
Product ID: 9780006531524
Delivery cost: Spend £20 and get free shipping
Dimensions: 129x198mm
Keywords: war,World
ISBN: 9780006531524
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Author: Marguerite
Rating: 5
Review: A first class and fully comprehensive account of what it was like to be a common soldier in the British army spanning more than a hundred years. Redcoat gives you all the stuff you'd expect about uniforms, orders of battle, discipline and arms. It covers the changes that happened in the span between the Seven Years War up to the Crimea. It covers the variations by regiment, the culture changes that the various high heid yins brought about (naturally, particularly Wellington). But it also gives the a real, very real feel for what it was like. How officers and men interacted. How Highlanders were viewed compared to, say, the Welsh or the Irish. The careraderie and the 'brothers in arms' spirit. The esprit de corps, and the suffering - there was a lot of suffering. It also has my favourite thing, gossip and funny stories and the kind of fascinating little factoids that you remember. In fact, I only have one grip with this book, and it's the type face. I still buy all my research books in good old-fashioned print - I like to have them on the shelves. The print in this one is so tiny I couldn't read it without extra light. Now, I know, I probably do need reading glasses, and I shouldn't cling to having had 20/20 vision all my life when I probably don't now, and yes, my eyes get very tired after a day at the screen but really - not even 20 years ago could I have read this easily. However, don't let that put you off. This is a book I'll go back to again and again. In fact, I'm using it right now. Highly recommended, though not exactly a light read!
Author: R. Lloyd
Rating: 3
Review: I thought this was an excellent source book on the subject, pulling together a huge amount of anecdote, mostly taken from first hand diary entries, memoirs, or correspondence, from soldiers across the period - from the Marlburian wars to the first Boer war. Interestingly, there is almost SO MUCH original anecdotal material included, that I found myself craving a rather greater proportion of commentary, insight, and interpretation from the author, rather than hurtling from one diary extract to another throughout. Curiously, the main focus is on the period 1750 to 1860 - curious, because the book would have been that much richer, I felt, by including a greater spread of earlier and later material relating, for instance, to the redcoats of the early C18th and later C19th. Actually, the focus on the Peninsular Wars and the Crimea becomes a little oppressive after a while, and whilst the 100 Days, the American Revolution, the Indian Mutiny, and a tiny bit of the Seven Years War also get an amount of coverage, there are several other significant conflicts of the era which do not get a look in. Presumably this is simply owing to the proportion of diary material available from the particular conflicts which seem to provide so much of the focus of the book. I also felt the positioning of the book slightly disingenuous - it is set up very much as 'the view from the common footslogger' but actually, an awful lot of the content (fully 50% I would estimate) revolves around the officer class. Perhaps this is not altogether surprising, given the relative literacy of the officer class and the non-commissioned classes in the era, but it is not quite the expectation the book initially sets up. I am bound to make one other criticism, which may or seem trivial to some, but I found pretty annoying, although it almost certainly reflects no discredit on the author himself. He has been badly served in the production quality of this book. It looks good, has a beautiful set of colour and black and white plates, and is pleasingly substantial in the hand - but it is absolutely riddled with elementary typos, spelling mistakes, incorrect words, and related gaffes. In a work of high quality historical writing, retailing at a not unreasonable, but still tidy £20, it's a great shame that more care was not taken in the preparation of the finished product, which gives every appearance of having been rushed. Overall though, pretty good. I would certainly recommend it, although the clumsy typography really irritated me!
