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'At Duty's Call': A Study in Obsolete Patriotism
Contributor(s): Reader, W. J. (Author)

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ISBN: 0719097533     ISBN-13: 9780719097539
Publisher: Manchester University Press
OUR PRICE: $35.10  

Binding Type: Paperback - See All Available Formats & Editions
Published: August 1988
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Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | Military - World War I
- Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social
- History | Social History
Dewey: 306.270
Series: Studies in Imperialism
Physical Information: 0.37" H x 6.14" W x 9.21" L (0.57 lbs) 176 pages
Themes:
- Chronological Period - 1900-1919
- Cultural Region - Western Europe
Features: Bibliography, Illustrated, Index
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
The Victorian private solider was a despised figure. A working man had to be desperate indeed to take the Queen's shilling. Yet in the first sixteen months of the Great War two and a half million men from the UK and many more from the empire, flocked to the colours - without any form of legal compulsion. There had never been a volunteer army like it. It seems to say there never will be again.

What was in the air of England in the generation or so before 1914 to bring about such collective exultation? How did it come about that, in a society which - in oft proclaimed contrast to Germany - rejected conscription and prided itself on having no taint of militarism, men could be induced to volunteer in such numbers? The nation's general state of mind, system of values and set of attitudes derived largely from the upper middle class, which had emerged and become dominant during the nineteenth century. The book examines the phenomenon of 1914 and the views held by people of that class, since it was under their leadership that the country went to war.

 
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