Citation

Brown M. Cult. Soc. Hist. 2017; 14(2): 155-181.

Affiliation

Department of Humanities, Digby Stuart College, University of Roehampton, London, UK.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/14780038.2016.1269538

PMID

28620269

PMCID

PMC5448395

Abstract

This article considers the reception and representation of advanced military technology in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. It argues that technologies such as the breech-loading rifle and the machine gun existed in an ambiguous relationship with contemporary ideas about martial masculinities and in many cases served to fuel anxieties about the physical prowess of the British soldier. In turn, these anxieties encouraged a preoccupation in both military and popular domains with that most visceral of weapons, the bayonet, an obsession which was to have profound consequences for British military thinking at the dawn of the First World War.

Language: en

Keywords

Masculinity; empire; gender; technology; war