Uniforms; Why We Are What We Wear

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. xii, [2], 204, [6] pages. Notes Toward the Reader's Own Theory of Uniforms. Format is approximately 5.75 inches by 9.25 inches. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Uniforms of the Sporting Life is addressed. Paul Fussell, Jr. (22 March 1924 - 23 May 2012) was an American cultural and literary historian, author and university professor. His writings cover a variety of topics, from scholarly works on eighteenth-century English literature to commentary on America's class system. Fussell served in the 103rd Infantry Division during World War II and was wounded in fighting in France. Returning to the US, Fussell wrote extensively and held several faculty positions, most prominently at Rutgers University (1955-1983) in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia (1983-1994). He is best known for his writings about War, which explore what he felt was the gap between the romantic myth and reality of war; he made a "career out of refusing to disguise it or elevate it". Derived from a Kirkus review: In what he bills "a book unashamedly about appearances," the acerbic literary and social critic analyzes what uniforms reveal about class, sex, and the need to belong. Fussell finds intense pride-the esprit de corps that realizes uniforms' attempts to suggest probity, professionalism, courage, and cleanliness, for such people as chefs, nurses, Boy Scouts, police officers, and airline pilots. Sexiness can even be a welcome result for the uniformed ranks, as evidenced by the heart-fluttering generated by many UPS workers. Often Fussell turns up fascinating factoids, and he can rise to heights of comic exaggeration. When he writes about subjects he's examined in other books-Boy Scouts, literature, class, and especially the military-he is best at blending incisive commentary with background history. He reserves his lethal ironic fire for those who tamper with sartorial success, including Admiral Elmo Zumwalt's attempt to alter the Navy's suits and Richard Nixon's order to dress the White House police in outfits suggesting a European comic operetta.