I received two books from Arcadia Press (2 Cumberland Street, Charleston, SC 29401, www.tempuspublishing.com). I passed on to Ian Knight Rorke’s Drift 1879: Anatomy of an Epic Zulu War Siege by Edmund Yorke in the next issue.

Arcadia Press is publishing books of military interest particularly regimental photographic histories. To date there are seven regiments in the series which includes:

East Lancashire Regiment, 1855-1958
The Black Watch
The Cheshire Regiment
The Dorsetshire Regiment
The Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry
The Welch Regiment, 1881-1969, and
The York and Lancaster Regiment

The Black Watch includes 128 pages, almost every one with two photos (well over two hundred pictures). Home or abroad, war or peace these are some great photographs. I also have the Black Watch issue of Regiment magazine and only saw two photographs that were similar. Unfortunately for individuals with colonial period interest 89 of the pages are devoted to the period 1914 to the present. Three chapters are of interest “From 1852 to 1881” (12 photos), “From 1881 to 1899” (23 photos), and “From 1899 to 1913” (20 photos) with most of the field photos from the Boer War. The captions provide details of the photographs as well as a general chronological history of the regiment. There is no text beyond the captions, so if you want a real history of the regiment this is not necessarily it, although this has some great photos.

I wish there were more photos from overseas service than home service but you cannot please everyone. And I am not displeased with any of the photographs and especially not the excellent captions that identify individuals, their ranks, location, and general description of what is happening, all very nice. For the gamer there is a wealth of uniform and equipment information. If you are interested in the history of any of the above regiments then the price of $19.99 or £9.99 will be well worth it, even more so if you are also interested in WWI or WWII. The Arcadia/Tempus Catalog includes numerous titles of interest, most of which are filled with photographs. I would highly recommend The Black Watch to anyone interested in British regiments.