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About
In this compelling new study, Carol E. Harrison and Thomas J. Brown chart the rise and fall of the Zouave uniform, the nineteenth century's most important military fashion fad for men and women on both sides of the Atlantic. Originating in French colonial Algeria, the uniform was characterized by an open, collarless jacket, baggy trousers, and a fez. As Harrison and Brown demonstrate, the Zouaves embraced ethnic, racial, and gender crossing, liberating themselves from the strictures of bourgeois society. Some served as soldiers in Papal Rome, the United States, the British West Indies, and Brazil, while others acted in theatrical performances that combined drag and drill. Zouave Theaters analyzes the interaction of the stage and the military, and reveals that the Zouave persona influenced visual artists from painters and photographers to illustrators and filmmakers.
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Reviews
"A brilliant and riveting book that chronicles the history of Zouaves all over the world. The uniform makes the soldier, or in this case, the uniform provides a unique and fascinating way to understand and compare military culture and its role in different societies."
Ty Seidule, author of Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the
"A rollicking account of military derring-do and theater with a sweeping global approach that sheds new light on war, colonialism, and popular culture in the nineteenth century. A triumph."
Robert Gildea, author of Empires of the Mind: The Colonial Past and the Politics of the Pr