An excellent account of one British regiment, the 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers, in the American Revolution. It covers a wide area of subject matter and I found it quite well written and the maps were a great help. I recommend this book to those interested in the American Revolution, the history of the British Army or in the 1700's. ( )

Excellent book that made you think from cover to cover. ( )

Una versión inglesa sobre la guerra de independencia americana, nos descoloca "los buenos son los otros". Muestra y resalta los defectos de los americanos y destaca e idealiza a los ingleses. En definitiva una visión diferente que cada tanto viene bien, Muestra además que no siempre el que gana las batallas gana la guerra y que a veces ser el mejor ejército no implica que se vaya a triunfar, lección que olvidan los militares y por ello revalida aquello de que "la guerra es muy seria para dejársela a los militares" ( )

It is an unfortunate aspect of modern book marketing that popular history books apparently need sensational truthy subtitles. "How the British Army Lost America but Learned to Fight" is a completely untrue sentence and shown to be false by the author himself in the last chapter of the book. The actual source of the successful British army in the Peninsular War from 1809 on lies in India.

The author's attempt to both tell the story of the American Revolution from a British point of view and follow the path across America of one regiment, the 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers, is only partially successful. While the 23rd was present from the start to the bitter end, it often played only a supporting role and its number of personal accounts and sources is quite limited. A concentration on Cornwallis' southern campaigns up to the surrender at Yorktown would have made a much stronger book. In the southern campaign, the 23rd was often in the center of the line of battle and shared the deprivations the British endured during their march across the Carolinas. Given the huge territories they crossed, the tiny number that constituted the British army is simply amazing. How could they ever think about subduing a rebellion with such limited forces. The book also serves as a welcome antidote to "The Patriot" movie truthiness. It is interesting to compare the British professional soldier's shock about Patriot/Loyalist atrocities in the light of today's Iraqi Sunni/Shia conflict. Often, the American patriots acted like terrorists, exacting brutal vengeance on people abandoned by the British. War is horrible and civil wars are the worst.

Overall, a good read that does not attain the level of the best military unit narratives of the American Revolution, such as Friederike von Riedesel's recollections about her and her husband's service in a Brunswick regiment in America. ( )

Mark Urban's "Fusiliers" is a valuable contribution to the litany of regimental histories which dot the landscape of military history. Whereas the vast majority of Revolutionary War books available in the United States are written from an unabashedly American perspective, "Fusiliers" makes for a refreshing change in tempo as the author states from the beginning his intention to break from the American point of view. With this in mind, the narrative follows the day-to-day existence of the 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers immediately prior to the outbreak of hostilities in 1775 through the years immediately following the end of the American Revolution. Urban draws in no small part from the existing memoirs and writings of members of the regiment, and paints a vivid picture of life within the regiment during the war. While the constant shifts in leadership and composition are covered, the author does not neglect to explain the background details of the Fusiliers' movements and even manages to provide an insightful window into the development of light infantry warfare during the war and its impact upon post-war British infantry doctrine. Readers do not have to fret about reading a constant stream of derisive remarks for the rebel side: Urban is equally critical of both the Americans and the British. There are minor errors sprinkled throughout the book, mostly publisher's mistakes rather than discrepancies in accuracy, but it does not detract from the overall quality of the book. As it is written in very readable prose, it is recommended to anyone looking for a view of British military affairs at the regimental level during the Revolution, and for the advanced enthusiast of the time period. ( )