Scouting for Boys

''A scout must always be prepared at any moment to do his duty, and to face danger in order to help his fellow-men.''A startling amalgam of Zulu war-cry and imperial and urban myth, of borrowed tips on health and hygiene, and object lessons in woodcraft, Robert Baden-Powell''s Scouting for Boys (1908) 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, 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, capitalists and environmentalists alike.