Drawing on Baden-Powell's extensive archive, Playing the Game is a rich and evocative selection of his writings, on peace - a major theme throughout his career and the theme of the 2007 centenary celebrations, on his own life, from his wonderfull idiosyncratic anecdotal autobiography and includes a healthy sprinkling of some of BP's more memorable aphorisms, such as ‘I don’t mind confessing I have a weakness for hippos' and 'The man who holds the average boy’s attention for more than seven minutes is a genius', not to mention 'Knowledge without character is mere pie-crust'. Imbued with a strong sense of the splendour and the old-school Empire feel of Baden-Powell’s work, Playing the Game offers a dazzling window into a world that’s gone, but whose legacy remains alive, not least in the 28 million members of the Scouts Association
I love spy stories — especially when they are true." - Barthélemy Banks, Mumm You think he was the ultimate Boy Scout, but before Robert Baden-Powell founded the Scouting Movement he was a spy. Not only did he spy for the British government, he wrote a book about those adventures -- explaining all. From the passing secret messages to using disguises, from hoodwinking the enemy to knowing whom to trust (no one). Baden-Powell tells all, and it reads like — well, like a spy novel. But it's all true.
A scout must always be prepared at any moment to do his duty, and to face danger in order to help his fellow-men." A startling amalgam of Zulu war-cry and imperial and urban myth, of borrowed tips on health and hygiene, and object lessons in woodcraft, Robert Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys (1908) is the original blueprint and 'self-instructor' of the Boy Scout Movement. One of the all-time bestsellers in the English-speaking world, this primer of 'yarns and pictures' constitutes probably the most influential manual for youth ever published. Yet the book is at the same time a roughly composed hodge-podge of jingoist lore and tracker legend, padded with lengthy quotations from adventure fiction and Baden-Powell's own autobiography, and seamed through with the multiple anxieties of its time: fears of degeneration, concerns about masculinity and self-restraint, and invasion paranoia. Elleke Boehmer's edition of Scouting for Boys reprints the original text and illustrations, and her fine introduction investigates a book that has been cited as an authority by militarists and pacifists, capitalists and environmentalists alike.
Robert Baden Powell's Scout movement was in its springtime when the Great War broke out in 1914. Emerging from the pioneering first camp on Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour, Scouting for boys soon spread like wildfire throughout the British Empire and by the time of the war, there were thousands of Scouts who flocked to join their country's colours. This anthology presents a selection of heroic deeds performed by Scouts in the conflict in suitably admiring terms. In his foreword, Baden Powell himself stresses the self-sacrifice; self-discipline and social equality of the Scouts as the key factors in their heroism. The deeds recorded here range from the famous self-sacrifice of 'Boy Jack Cornwell at Jutland - as act which won him a posthumous VC - to Piper David Laidlaw's equally brave exploit when he walked along the trench parapet during the battle lf Loos playing the pipes to encourage his comrades. Laidlaw survived the action to win another celebrated VC. This is the perfect book for all former Boy Scouts - and for anyone interested in stirring deeds performed by brave men and boys in war. It also contains lengthy details of numerous awards, from MMs to VCs and the lives of leading Scouts killed in action during the Great War.
Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell (1857-1941), also known as B-P, was a lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, and founder of the Scout Movement. After having been educated at Charterhouse School, Baden-Powell served in the British Army from 1876 until 1910 in India and Africa. In 1899, during the Second Boer War in South Africa, Baden- Powell successfully defended the city in the Siege of Mafeking. Several of his military books, written for military reconnaissance and scout training in his African years, were also read by boys. Based on those earlier books, he wrote Scouting for Boys, published in 1908 by Pearson, for youth readership. During writing, he tested his ideas through a camping trip on Brownsea Island that began on 1 August 1907, which is now seen as the beginning of Scouting.
In Sons of the Empire, Robert MacDonalf explores popular ideas and myths in Edwardian Britain, their use by Baden-Powell, and their influence on the Boy Scout movement. In particular, he analyses the model of masculinity provided by the imperial frontier, the view that life in younger, far-flung parts of the empre was stronger, less degenerate than in Britain. The stereotypical adventurer - the frontiersman - provided an alternative ethic to British society. The best known example of it at the time was Baden-Powell himself, a war scout, the Hero of Mafeking in the South African war, and one of the first cult heroes to be created by the modern media. When Baden-Powell founded the Boy Scouts in 1908, he used both the power of the frontier myth and his own legend as a hero to galvanize the movement. The glamour of war scouting was hard to resist, its adventures a seductive invitation to the frist recruits. But Baden-Powell had a serious educational program in mind: Boy Scouts were to be trained in good citizenship. MacDoanld docusments his study with a wide range of contemporary sources, from newspapers to military memoirs. Exploring the genesis of an imperial institution through its own texts, he brings new insight into the Edwardian age.
This deluxe, unabridged reprint Legacy Edition of Robert Baden-Powell's 1908 Scouting For Boys is the very first manual for boy scouts, which kicked off the global scout movement! First published in the UK for British boy scouts, BP's handbook provides the blueprint for the first scouts and inspired scout organizations in America, Canada, and other countries across the world.
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