According to the renowned social critic and historian Paul Fussell, we are what we wear, and it doesn't look good. Uniforms parses the hidden meanings of our apparel -- from brass buttons to blue jeans, badges to feather flourishes -- revealing what our clothing says about class, sex, and our desire to belong. With keen insight and considerable curmudgeonly flair, Fussell unfolds the history and cultural significance of all manner of attire, fondly analyzing the roles that uniforms play in a number of communities -- the military, the church, health care, food service, sports -- even everyday civilian life. Uniforms is vintage Fussell: "revelatory, ribald, and irresistible" (Shirley Hazzard). "Full of pugnacious observations and intellectual insights . . . Paul Fussell is back, and he's feisty as ever." --Rebecca Denton Bookpage "Fussell's funny, touching insights spring from an unmistakable compassion for people's need to feel 'the comfort and vanity of belonging.'" Publishers Weekly "I love a man in uniform! . . . Fussell embroiders on why we are what we wear." --Elissa Schappell Vanity Fair "Fussell turns his sharp eye and even sharper wit to the standardized dress..." --Time Out New York "...very smart, very funny..." --Malcolm Jones Newsweek "Perfect holiday gift for anyone who wears clothes -- and one size fits all." --James A Butler The Philadelphia Inquirer Paul Fussell is the author of, among other works, Class and The Great War and Modern Memory, which won both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and was named by the Modern Library as one of the twentieth century’s one hundred best nonfiction books. He lives in Philadelphia. Uniforms Why We Are What We Wear By Paul Fussell Mariner Books Copyright © 2003 Paul Fussell All right reserved. ISBN: 0618381880 Excerpt A Thing About Uniforms Society, which the more I think of it astonishes me the more, is founded upon cloth." Thus Thomas Carlyle in 1836. Little less astonishing today are some of the cloth objects chosen by their wearers. But when such objects become, like uniforms, obligatory and regulated, with implications of mass value, they are irresistibly fascinating. All my life I have had a thing about uniforms. Although it would be pleasant to assert that as a newborn I noted that all the boys were lapped in little blue blankets, with the girls uniformly in pink, I wouldn"t go back that far. But it is undeniable that as I aged I began to appear in a sailor suit (this was in the late 1920s), complete, despite the short pants, with whistle and lanyard and red sleeve insignia featuring eagles and chevrons. Next, my loving mother went into action to accouter me as an ideal Boy Scout, with the result that at troop gatherings I was conspicuously overdressed among boys who as a sophisticated gesture wore only a part of the uniform, if that, at a time. I had the whole thing, and brand-new, comprising breeches, long socks, Smoky Bear hat, official shirt, neckerchief, even official shoes. The rest of the troop appeared in blue jeans or corduroys, with perhaps a neckerchief fastened by a rubber band. (Mine was secured by a costly official slide.) The whole thing was a terrible mistake, resulting in my deep humiliation and rapid resignation from the Boy Scouts. This was all highly ironic, for, entirely uninterested in Scouting "activities," my reason for joining was actually the uniform alone. And also not to be forgotten was the invariable Sunday uniform for churchgoing, consisting of dark suit, white shirt, black shoes, and understated dark tie. This was at the time I was in high school, and attracted to the Junior ROTC, but only because those enrolled in it performed their evolutions in full dress uniform and, sweating profusely, were excused from showering afterward. (I had a horror of exposing my babyish body.) The ROTC uniform consisted of olive-drab trousers and wool shirt with black tie, the whole gloriously completed by a real U.S. Army jacket, but with bright blue lapels to distinguish it from the jacket worn by real grown-up soldiers. There was plenty of brass to convey a military look, lots of buttons and lapel ornaments in the form of discs exhibiting lighted torches (of "learning"). Keeping these, as well as the brass belt buckle, shiny was our prime military duty. There was never any other homework. Later, at college, I proceeded to join the Senior ROTC (Infantry), which meant furnishing myself at government expense with a real officer"s uniform of the 1940s, including pink trousers and greenish-brown jacket. But still distinguished from actuality and seriousness by the shaming letters ROTC on the cap badge and the lapel brass US"s. General Colin L. Powell (U.S.A., Ret.) has testified about the way uniforms first attracted him. When he was a student at New York"s City College, "during the first semester at CCNY, something had caught my eye