Redcoats to Tommies: The Experience of the British Soldier from the Eighteenth Century, ed. Kevin Linch and Matthew Lord

Abstract

The editors of this fine new collection of essays, Kevin Linch and Matthew Lord, claim that ‘interest in “Tommy” has never been higher’ (p. 2). Over the last decade, the centenary of the First World War and—to a lesser extent—the bicentenary of Waterloo focused popular attention on the history of the common soldier as never before. Exhibitions, re-enactments, performances and commemorations encourage Britons today to empathise with those who experienced these wars, and genealogy companies such as Ancestry encourage us to find out about our own soldier ancestors. This overlaps with the activities of military charities such as the Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes, which support former soldiers and their families. If sometimes the tone of these efforts can cause controversy—witness the annual debates about the rights and wrongs of poppy-wearing, particularly for those in the public eye—then that only highlights how fraught and complex the relationship between the armed forces and society can be, an issue that runs throughout the chapters assembled in this book.