Racializing the Soldier

Racializing the Soldier explores the impact of racial beliefs on the formation and development of modern armed forces and the ways in which these forces have been presented and historicized from a global perspective. With a wide geographical and temporal spread, the collection looks at the disparate ways that race has influenced military development. In particular, it explores the extent to which ideas of racial hierarchy and type have conditioned thinking about what kinds of soldiers should be used and in what roles.

This volume offers a highly original military, social and cultural history, questioning the borders both of racialization and of the military itself. It considers the extent to which discourses of gender, nationality and religion have informed racialization, and probes the influence of expert studies of soldiers as indicators of national population types. By focusing mostly, but not exclusively, on colonial and post-colonial states, the book considers how racialized militaries both shaped and reflected conflict in the modern world, ultimately explaining how the history of this idea has often underpinned modern military planning and thinking.

This book is based on a special issue of Patterns of Prejudice.

Dr Gavin Schaffer is Senior Lecturer in British History at the University of Birmingham, UK. His research interests include race and immigration history, racial science, race and the media and the history of racial violence. Previous publications include Racial Science and British Society 1930-62 (2008) and The Lasting War: Society and Identity in Britain, France and Germany after 1945 (2008).