Scouting for Boys

''A Scout is a Friend to all''An amalgam of imperial myth, borrowed tips on health and hygiene, and object lessons in woodcraft, the 1908 text of Robert Baden-Powell''s Scouting for Boys is the original blueprint and ''self-instructor'' of the Boy Scout Movement. One of the all-time bestsellers in the English-speaking world, this primer of ''yarns and pictures'' constitutes probably the most influential manual for youth ever published. Yet the book is at the same time a roughly composed hodge-podge of jingoist lore and tracker legend, padded with lengthy quotations from adventure fiction and Baden-Powell''s own autobiography, and seamed through with the multiple anxieties of its time: fears of degeneration, concerns about masculinity and self-restraint, and invasion paranoia.Elleke Boehmer''s edition of Scouting for Boys reprints the original text and illustrations, and her fine introduction investigates a book that has been cited as an authority by militarists and pacifists, capitalis