The British military of the mid to late nineteenth century was yet another microcosm of Europe's class struggle. Of course, Britain's lower classes overwhelmingly made up its enlisted ranks while the middle and upper classes dominated its officer corps. Therefore, by the mid to late nineteenth century Her Majesty's Regular Army and its reserve components (Volunteers, Militia, Yeomanry, and Reserves) had become structurally familial in its organizational structure. The widespread perception of the average soldier, as well as the ideals he ought to embody (devotion to queen and country, bravery, coolness under fire, courteousness to women and the weak), was advocated by the middle and upper classes (8–9). Through an extensive analysis of childhood and teenage experiences common among the lower classes, Richard Fulton's Warrior Generation, 1865–1885: Militarism and British Working-Class Boys deconstructs the notion—which Fulton dubs “sentimental paternalism” (8)—of an institutional effort to militarize Britain's lower class for service in the empire, reform their values to reflect that of the middle classes, and guide impoverished youth away from a life of crime. Public spectacles and personal experiences with uniformed soldiers, Fulton argues, have garnered an inaccurate perception of a militarized and imperialistic lower class. Fulton contends that the generation of lower-class boys (the “warrior generation” of the title) was neither militaristic nor imperialistic (or even that patriotic) but accepted the British military as an “antidote to the grinding hopelessness of lower-class life” (23).

Throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century, Parliament expanded the army's organizational reserve footprint across Britain, increasing the army's local and regional visibility. Lower-class sentiments and public displays encouraged an empathetic view of the army, predominantly as a source of employment, coupled with the opportunity for romantic adventure in the empire's colonial domains, which Fulton contrasts with “sweeping arguments” (20) made by contemporary scholars that Britain's lower classes held imperialistic, militaristic, and particularly masculine-centric beliefs. Fulton argues that few among the lower classes were even aware of Britain's empire; they likely could not identify it on a map. Heavily reliant on archival source material such as autobiographies, memoirs, and letters, Fulton employs the retrospective words and thoughts of members of the Warrior Generation to demonstrate that their service in the army was not an outburst of militarism or imperialism. Still, as he demonstrates, rank-and-file soldiers often did not regret their service but instead looked back on their time in the army with pride.

After the introduction, chapter 1 provides an organizational overview of the British military's land forces and interclass attitudes toward the army. In the remaining four chapters Fulton thematically supports his thesis. These chapters are less an argument, instead offering a glimpse into what Fulton describes as “artifacts” (8) or experiences, attitudes, and expectations held among boys and young men of the lower classes, specifically in the wake of Herbert Kitchener's victory at Omdurman in 1898. Therefore, the bulk of Warrior Generation is dedicated to an examination of how boys and young men lived their lives prior to enlisting. In chapter 3, Fulton contextualizes the social influences of work and family life, specifically as motivators to enlistment. In chapter 4, he reviews schooling, curriculum, pedagogy, and textbooks in search of militarism in Britain's private and public school systems. As its title, “Leisure, Play, Entertainment,” suggests, in chapter 5 Fulton demonstrates that boys often avoided overt militaristic activities, such as marching, when given the option. Finally, in chapter 6 Fulton evaluates the influence of literature, specifically works of adventure fiction and propagandist adverts. In these four chapters, Fulton's finds little in the way of militaristic influence in his extensive archival research. Rather, his selection of primary source material often affords agency to lower-class boys and later men. Ultimately, “there's no evidence that sensationalizing the military had any effect on getting more or better recruits” (263).

Celebrated in times of war and decried in times of peace, the late Victorian army appears to be a bit of a paradox. Fulton's extensive study adequately reflects that paradox. Fulton's crowning achievement in Warrior Generation is his distancing of various academic -isms in his search for a more simple answer. Britain's youth joined the army in search of opportunities both financial and adventurous. Many who served looked back on their time in the military with pride not because of patriotic service to the empire but because of what was essentially camaraderie. Therein lies Warrior Generation's fundamental flaw. Like many professions, military service was “a camaraderie of workers” (98). Whether marching in the English countryside or fighting in Britain's numerous little colonial wars of the period, the inherent struggle of serving in the military should have been the monograph's binding thematic element. Regardless, Warrior Generation is an excellent example, especially for graduate students, of how to question or challenge traditional academic conceptions.