Second World War British Military Camouflage - Designing Deception

Second World War British Military Camouflage offers an original approach to the cultures and geographies of military conflict, through a study of the history of camouflage. Isla Forsyth narrates the scientific biography of Dr Hugh Cott (1900-1987), eminent zoologist and artist turned camoufleur, and entwines this with the lives of other camouflage practitioners, to trace the sites of camouflage''s developments. Moving through the scientists'' fieldsite, the committee boardroom, the military training site and the soldiers'' battlefield, this book uncovers the history of this ambiguous military invention, and subverts a long-dominant narrative of camouflage as solely a protective technology. This study demonstrates that, as camouflage transformed battlefields into unsettling theatres of war, there were lasting consequences not only for military technology and knowledge, but also for the ethics of battle and the individuals enrolled in this process.>

List of contents

List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations

Introduction: A Genealogy of Camouflage
1. Dazzling and Disrupting Conflict
2. Hiding in Plain Sight
3. The Politics of Position
4. Tricksters Transformed to Soldiers
5. Fleurs on the Offensive
Conclusion: Afterlives

Notes
References

About the author

Isla Forsyth is Assistant Professor in Cultural and Historical Geography at the University of Nottingham, UK.

Product details

• Authors: Isla Forsyth, Isla (University of Nottingham Forsyth, Forsyth Isla
• Assisted by: Stephen McVeigh (Editor)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 09.03.2017
• EAN: 9781474222600
• ISBN: 978-1-4742-2260-0
• No. of pages: 240
• Series: War, Culture and Society; War, Culture and Society
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Geosciences > Geography; European History, HISTORY / Military / General, 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, HISTORY / Military / Weapons, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / 20th Century, British & Irish history, Second World War, United Kingdom, Great Britain, c 1938 to c 1946 (World War Two period), Modern warfare, c 1939 to c 1945 (including WW2), Weapons & equipment, Weapons and equipment, History / Wars & Conflicts / World War II / European Theater