Zouave Theaters: Transnational Military Fashion and Performance

In this compelling new study, Carol E. Harrison and Thomas J. Brown chart the rise and fall of the Zouave military uniform, the nineteenth century's most important 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.

About the Author :
Carol E. Harrison is professor of history at the University of South Carolina and the author of Romantic Catholics: France's Postrevolutionary Generation in Search of a Modern Faith.

The author of Civil War Monuments and the Militarization of America, Thomas J. Brown is professor of history at the University of South Carolina.

Review :
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 Present

"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 Lost Cause

"In both France and the United States, Zouaves have been cultural Forrest Gumps, bopping up in all of the right places. Transnational history at its finest, Zouave Theaters is a must-read for anyone interested in military history, fashion history, the history of theater, French history, or American history." - Stephen L. Harp, author of The Riviera, Exposed: An Ecohistory of Postwar Tourism and North African Labor

"This is the first scholarly, transnational examination of Zouaves, not just as militants but as a wider cultural phenomenon. Expansive in scope and engagingly written, Zouave Theaters makes a tremendously valuable contribution to the fields of American and European cultural and military history." - Lesley J. Gordon, author of A Broken Regiment: The 16th Connecticut's Civil War