The Amateur Military Tradition, 1558-1945 (Manchester History of the British Army) by Ian F. W. Beckett

This work, part of a series on the British Army, is concerned with the means the British have used to avoid having a large standing army from earliest times (1558) to this century, preferring to opt for amateur or temporary arrangements for soldiers when the need arose. The amateur military tradition has taken varying forms. The origins of auxiliary forces, for example, are rooted in the military obligations of the Anglo-Saxons and were transmitted through mediaeval legislation to be enshrined in what might properly be called the first militia statutes of 1558. Thereafter, the militia had a formal statutory existence until 1604, and then from 1648 to 1735, to be followed by two similar periods – 1757 to 1831 and 1852 to 1908. The intricacies of the military as an institution of state are explored further in the book, which lays out the complexities of the types of compulsion that the state has used over the years to raise sufficient forces as circumstances have dictated.