J. A. Mangan - ‘Manufactured’ Masculinity: Making Imperial Manliness, Morality and Militarism

Manufactured Masculinity should be considered essential reading for scholars in the humanities and social sciences at every level and in all parts of the academic world. It weaves together brilliantly the elements of the manufacture of masculinity in the period world-famous public school system for the privileged which serviced the largest empire, the world has ever known, at the zenith of its control and which has had a significant influence in the formation of the modern world. This authoritative study of the making of British imperial masculinity shines light on the period of Muscular Christianity, Social Darwinism and Militarism as meshed ideological instruments of both power and persuasion.

This magisterial study reveals the extraordinary and paramount influence of games fields as the machine tools in an industrial process with the schools as workshops containing cultural conveyor-belts for the production of robust, committed and confident servants of empire, and templates for imperial reproduction in imperial possessions. Mainly on efficient production belt playing fields of the privileged minds were moulded, attitudes were constructed and bodies shaped - for imperial manhood. Earlier manliness was metamorphosized, morality was redefined and militarism at the high point of imperial grandeur was an adjunct. Professor Mangan outlines this unique process of cultural conditioning with a unique range of evidence and analysis.

This book was published as a special double issue of the International Journal of the History of Sport.