An Illustrated History of Uniforms from 1775-1783: The American Revolutionary War

by Kevin F. Kiley, Digby Smith

An expert guide to the uniforms of the American militias and Continental Army, the armies and navies of Great Britain and France, German and Spanish units, and American Indian allies, with over 450 color illustrations. The uniforms of the fighting men of the American War of Independence are a vivid illustration of the difficulties and complexities of the conflict, and this book brings together for the first time a sweeping survey of what they should have worn, what they really wore, how they were armed, and what they carried with them. As well as illustrations of the soldiers, equipment and kit – with over 450 in total and an unrivalled level of detail in the depiction of the uniforms – the campaigns and battles are explained with specially commissioned maps and plans, and plates and fine-art paintings of the period. Contains an unprecedented wealth of illustrative detail, with over 450 illustrations of uniforms, battle plans, technical drawings and campaign maps. Gives a concise, authoritative record of America s fight to become independent of its colonial founders, with detailed analysis of the decisive encounters and landmark engagements of the conflict.

Genres: History, American Revolutionary War, Military History, American Revolution, Reference

256 pages, Hardcover

First published April 25, 2007

Reviews

[Ian Racey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautifully produced book with lovely illustrations and also plenty of text.

Most of the text is of course about the uniforms, but there's also an account of the historical progress of the Revolutionary War itself. The narrative history is very much not the point of the book, but it's worth noting that it's almost exactly the account you'd get in a middle-grade American history textbook, including the parts that are oversimplified or that outright present myth as fact.

The big knock on the book is lack of attention to detail, which manifests itself in contradictions between pictures and their captions (for instance, captions talking about the significance of a uniform's brown coat, when the uniform pictured has a blue coat); mismatching captions to pictures; contradictions between captions and the main text; or contradictions between pictures and the main texts. The text can also be frequently repetitious. For instance, the chapter on naval uniforms has separate pages for Royal Navy enlisted sailors, French enlisted sailors and Continental enlisted sailors, but all three pages contain the exact same information (both in text and pictures): that petty officers dressed more formally than regular sailors, and carried a rope-end for disciplining regular sailors, and that no navy of the period had formalised uniforms for regular sailors.

[Rob Markley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite disappointing in that it simply throws in random information about each country and unit type rather than any comprehensive overview. It would be nice to see consistency in such books instead of convenience to pad out anything for publishing

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book includes not just information about uniforms but also some information about equipment and weapons used by the troops and the organization of units. However, almost a fifth of the book gives a historical background to the Revolutionary War, which doesn't do much for explaining the uniforms of the war.