Description: "This project investigates three distinct models of officer acculturation-the British public schools, the monarchical cadet schools in Imperial Germany, Austria, and Russia, and the US Military Academy-and compares the subterranean practices, rituals, and codes at these schools. These, John Morris argues, were actually quite similar and instilled the shared and recursive sets of values and behaviors that constituted European and American officer cultures for the nineteenth and crucial decades of the twentieth century"-- Provided by publisher.
Review Quotes:
Relying on primary source materials, Morris depicts a world more reminiscent of William Golding's Lord of the Flies than praiseworthy academic institutions, including hazing rituals, harassment, homoeroticism, and sexual exploitation, all done in the guise of a feudal and chivalric educational environment. Such environments were designed mainly to turn boys into men as either soldiers or statesmen and reinforced the existing patriarchy without appreciating women in their world view. . . Students to Soldiers is a must for anyone interested in understanding the education of the future leaders who guided the great powers into the Age of Total War.
--CHOICE