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A magisterial new history of the British soldier - a man famously described by the Duke of Wellington as ?the scum of the earth?. From battlefield to barrack-room, this book is stuffed to the brim with anecdotes and stories of soldiers from the army of Charles II, through Empire and two World Wars to modern times. The British soldier forms a core component of British history. In this scholarly but gossipy book, Richard Holmes presents a rich social history of the man (and now more frequently woman) who have been at the heart of his writing for decades. Technological, political and social changes have all made their mark on the development of warfare, but have the attitudes of the soldier shifted as much we might think? For Holmes, the soldier is part of a unique tribe ? and the qualities of loyalty and heroism have continued to grow amongst these men. And while today the army constitutes the smallest proportion of the population since the first decade of its existence (regular...Pages of Soldiers :