Book Recommendation - Rifles by Mark Urban

[AWP]

Like many of you, I read a lot; I think I'm in the neighborhood of 20 books a year.

My latest endeavour (note the spelling) is Rifles or Wellington's Rifles (the title depends on the version/ market):

http://www.amazon.com/Wellingtons-R...=1346779449&sr=1-2&keywords=mark+urban+rifles

It is a great book. It goes beyond the usual "fought here, fought there" military history and does a very good job of covering life for a British soldier in the Peninsular War under Wellington.

Why I recommend it is that it also covers, without being weepy-eyed, the psychological state of the soldiers and how their lives fared after their discharges. The book is well researched and written, and something amateur historians like me should read. Tactics, history, battlefield medicine, camp life, psychology, mini-biographies, leadership both good and bad, corporal punishment....this has it all, covering a period probably many of us have never read about.

 

[Texas_Medic]

Thanks, I am looking forward to reading it and adding it to my library. Before I became interested in medicine I actually wanted to be a history prof. Specifically, European military history 16th-19th centuries.

 

[AWP]

De nada. I think that it speaks to a lot of us on this board in that they were a new concept, despised by the Old Guard, misunderstood by just about everyone else, particularly London. They had new/ different uniforms, weapons, tactics, recruiting, etc. The author quite rightly compared them to their era's SOF...as "SOF" you could be in 1814. The unit also experienced growing pains when it expanded from one battalion to three and career-minded officers sought assignment to the unit....just long enough to establish some "street cred" before moving on to staff assignments for promotion (and the mortality rate was better on a staff).

All of that is on top of the day-to-day drudgery of life back then, an era where my knowledge base is shallow.