The ROTC was phased out of many high schools and colleges during the Vietnam War, but is making a comeback today, for better or worse. We’ll take a look at the history of this controversial organization by way of a book that predates it: The Boy Soldier, a textbook of infantry tactics for school children, first published in 1863 and available now at the Brattle Book Shop. Plus, we’ll take a look behind the scenes, at this process of determining a price for an extremely rare book like this one, which can be harder to research than other sought after but relatively more common works.
Brattlecast #31 - Old News
In this episode Ken shows off a bound volume of Harper's Weekly from 1863, and flipping through it with him is like peering into a fascinating time capsule from the Civil War era. Harper's employed some of the best journalists, artists, and photographers of the time, and in its pages eye-witness battlefield reportage and sentimental woodcut illustrations of homesick soldiers share space with advertisements for dubious health tonics and prosthetic limbs.
