Presenting arms

Military museums or museums with substantial military collections are the largest group of specialist museums in Britain. With some two hundred of these, Britain has the largest number of military museums in the world. The history of military collecting dates from the seventeenth century and this book examines the origins of military museum collections and describes how military history 1660-1900 is portrayed in them.

Included are discussions of the inherent problems in portraying warfare; the social history of the serviceman, his family and camp followers; the relationship between the armed forces and civilian populations; and the role of museum archives and questions of educational provision.

Throughout, the author draws on recent theoretical studies of the nature of collecting. The dramatic rise in what is frequently called 'revisionist' history during the past decade has increasingly stimulated debate about the role of museums in the depiction and interpretation of history, and no more so than in the field of military history.

This book, therefore, offers a timely overview of the controversies and issues involved and will appeal to both museum professionals and social and military historians.