News from the Front:
Other recent Osprey titles in the Men-At-Arms series touch only lightly on Colonial subjects. American Indians of the Southeast, written by Michael Johnson and illustrated hy Richard Hook, looks at a group often overlooked in the mythology of the literature of the Native Americans, the groups who inhabited the area between the Mississippi and the Atlantic. These groups - among them the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creeks and Seminoles - were among the first to suffer as a result of the expansion of European colonisation in America, and were involved in a number of wars over the century between the 1730 and 1840; This book provides a vivid insight into their lifestyle and fighting techniques, and a brief outline of military operations. The plates are particularly striking, and provide a vivid contrast to the more familiar images of the Western Indian groups. Also Colonial in the broadest sense are Marko Zlatich's General Washington's Army (2); 1779-1783, illustrated by Bill Younghusband, which looks at the emergence of the more formal, better uniformed and equipped Continental Army, and Stuart Reid's King George's Army 1740-1793; (2), illustrated by Paul Chappell, which looks at infantry and auxiliary uniforms from the Jacobite Rebellion through to the post American War period. With all of the attention concentrated on the period of high empire in the nineteenth century, it is easy to forget that much of the framework of British colonialism was laid down during the eighteenth; Stuart's book includes something on British uniforms in the Caribbean and East India Company uniforms. Both titles are illustrated in a style which is clean and informative, but - dare I say it! - a little unimaginative compared to, say, Richard Hook's work in the Indians title. More Reviews:
Reviews: Osprey Titles News: American Wars Review: Blood on Painted Mountain Review: The South African Campaign of 1879 Review: A Widow-Making War News: Living History: Siege of Eshowe Review: Badges of the British Army Review: The Military and United States Indian Policy Review: The Military in British India Back to Colonial Conquest Issue 11 Table of Contents © Copyright 1996 by Partizan Press. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. |