Camouflage by Eric Larson
The best way to describe Camouflage by Eric Larson* is to share a funny story. I received the book and showed it to my husband. He was surprised that there is a book about camouflage fabrics, so he opened it and looked at a random page, then turned to another page, and another before saying… this is actually very interesting. I imagine this is the sort of reaction people would get when looking at the book, starting with “why” to “wow, that’s fascinating stuff”. Of course, I loved the book, hence the very well deserved 5 stars.
This is a comprehensive reference book on the military and paramilitary camouflage patterns from around 200 countries and, even more, it contains old(er) types of fabric too, after WWII to modern day fabrics. Some of the fabrics are unusual, so much that I wouldn’t have said that these are camouflage patterns. Naturally camouflage is different for snow, desert, or green fields, but even those are so very different.
Just to give a glimpse into the sort of details, I picked 4 patterns to talk about. There are hundreds of pictures in the book with the patterns and also with military personal.
Top-left is a pattern from Egypt, produced during the First Gulf War. It should have had some green on it too, but despite having a defect, it was still used for uniforms.
The top-right pattern was used in Syria from the 1970s to the 1990s.
Bottom-left is a camouflage used by the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army in the civil war. This is the sort of pattern I would have assumed is a camouflage.
Bottom-right is a leaf-type pattern from Romania. It looks like parsley and was adopted in 1960s. Interestingly, there were other countries from the Soviet bloc with a similar pattern.
I highly recommend the book. It has a lot of fascinating details on these patterns and it is also fascinating to look into the patterns of political thought (pun intended) when some camouflage was created and used. The information is presented by country, but it’s easy to look at differences and similarities between neighbouring countries as they are ordered by continent too.
Camouflage by Eric Larson
Details about the picture: –
My rating: 5/5 Stars
Would I recommend it: yes
Published by: Pen & Sword Military
Year it was published: 2022
Format: Hardcover
Genre(s): History – Military
Pages: 496
About the author: Eric Larson has been a researcher and collector of military camouflage for more than thirty years. He created one of the very first internet forums devoted to discussion of camouflage designs and military combat uniforms, the International Camouflage Uniform Society, which brought together collectors, researchers, curators, and historians from around the world. In 2010, he co-founded the Camopedia website with Henrik Clausen, which is a living document and the only comprehensive, academically-supported database of military camouflage patterns known to exist.
Eric has served as a primary consultant for published research projects, and has been cited in many military reference works, histories, artistic works, blogs, forums, personal websites and even role-playing game supplements. In addition to a passion for camouflage, he is also a collector and researcher of international airborne and special operations insignia, head dress, and unit histories. His interests include history, linguistics, classical literature, music, woodworking and the preservation of traditional indigenous cultures.
Website & Social Media Links: Pen and Sword
*I was sent a copy of Camouflage by Eric Larson for the purpose of this review. All opinions are my own.
It’s always fun when a rather quirky subject like this turns out to be so fascinating. I always think it’s due to the author’s enthusiasm for the subject and his ability to share that enthusiasm with the reader. Sounds like this author has done a great job!
You are right, the passion for the subject made the book so interesting.
I find textiles really interesting, so this looks like a very good one!
jeanie recently posted…Why Wait?
As you say, a really unusual topic, but then there are books or magazines for just about everything you can think of these days (and some you couldn’t even imagine), so why not camouflage. The only one which really looks like camouflage to me, is the Egyptian one, the other three all look like they should be sold by the roll as wallpaper! 🙂
You are right, they do look like wallpaper. The Romanian one is similar to the style of William Morris. :))
I think this would be a very interesting book. There are also many different camo patterns for sportsmen/hunters. When we first married, my husband used a lot of his camo from the Vietnam War for duck hunting.
Kelly recently posted…iPod Roulette – May 2022
It’s quite an unusual topic, but fascinating if you start to look at all the patterns. It’s interesting that there are so many types, all similar and different at the same time.