Uniforms: Why We Are What We Wear (2002)

Maybe it's just me, but I am confused as to what relevance this book's subtitle has to its contents. 'Uniforms: Why We Are What We Wear' surely implies a relationship between uniforms and human behaviour, yet this is the one idea that the author doesn't seem to have considered, or at least not at any great length.

What one finds instead is a cobbled together mishmash of discrepant musings on the subject, consisting largely of detailed descriptions of the various uniforms under consideration. (Such vignettes are of course necessary if the reader is to understand what the author is talking about, but the problem of having to present so many boring details could easily have been obviated by the use of images, of which there are none!) And what are we to make of the author's condescension towards 'uniform enthusiasts'? Such an attitude emanating from the author of a book about uniforms is a tad hypocritical, is it not?

The work is not entirely devoid of merit – there are many interesting nuggets scattered throughout its pages and from a purely linguistic perspective the text is very well written – but the positives are unfortunately outweighed by the negatives. I am left with a new appreciation of the subject, but I am also left feeling that there must be far better works I could have read instead.

This is a collection of very short meanderings on the subject of uniforms by someone who used to know what he was talking about. Paul Fussell's [book:The Great War and Modern Memory] was a really good book. book:Class] was a pretty good book. The only reason I gave this book two stars was that I did finish it, and it gave me a chuckle or two. Had it not been a library book, I might have thrown it across the room a time or two or three, because of simple errors of fact. For example, the Army has not tucked its neckties between the second and third shirt buttons in my memory, which goes back at least as far as the introduction of Army green. Whether or not the Army Rangers are currently the only ones allowed to wear the black beret, I had one as a WAC in 1973. And the Girl Guides are not "now called Girl Scouts" -- they are still Girl Guides in England and Girl Scouts in the US as they have been from the beginning. When I find this many inaccuracies about things I do know about, it makes me loath to believe the statements Fussell makes about things I don't know about. Don't bother reading this, instead read [book:The Great War and Modern Memory], from which you may actually learn something. ( )

well argued and entertaining essays, displaying scholarship even without lots of footnotes. Written in these happier times, when Yugoslavia was connected with nudism and not massacres ( )

Considering the level of scholarship in Fussell's previous books, this work disappoints. There is no index, there are no references. ( )