Scouting Frontiers: Youth and the Scout Movement’s First Century

Despite the fact that Scouting has touched the lives of a quarter of a billion boys and girls and their leaders around the world in the past century, its history has been largely ignored. Scouting Frontiers: Youth and the Scout Movement’s First Century is the first book to discuss the history and principal themes of the Boy Scout and Girl Guide movements on an international scale. Inspired by presentations at the ground-breaking 2008 Johns Hopkins University symposium, "Scouting: A Centennial History," the authors examine the world's greatest youth movement through the diverse experiences of its members and their organizations. From Muslim Scouts in Wales to French Scouts in Syria to Girl Guides in colonial Kenya, Scouting has responded to the challenges of international expansion and transformed itself to address cultural, political and social diversity. Scouting Frontiers focuses particularly on the intersections between Scouting’s origins and its transformations over the last century as it faced frontiers of nation, empire, religion, race, class, and gender.

Nelson R. Block is the author of A Thing of the Spirit: The Life of E. Urner Goodman, published by the Boy Scouts of America (2000) and was co-chair of "Scouting: A Centennial History Symposium," held at Johns Hopkins University in February 2008. His work in Scouting history has been honored by Scout associations in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Tammy Proctor is Professor of History at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, and the author of On My Honour: Guiding and Scouting in Interwar Britain (2002), Female Intelligence: Women and Espionage in the First World War (2003), and Scouting for Girls: A Century of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (forthcoming).

"By drawing together a number of the eminent names in the history of youth movements and empire, and ranging - appropriately - across a variety of different contexts and geographical spaces, 'Scouting Frontiers' gives a richly layered account of the alluring concept that has fundamentally shaped and informed Scouting - its challenges for the young, its identity, its history - since its inception just over one hundred years ago: the far frontier."

Elleke Boehmer, Professor of World Literature in English University of Oxford, and editor of the Oxford edition of Baden-Powell's 1908 'Scouting for Boys'

"The great virtue of this volume is that, for the first time, we have a set of excellent essays reflecting Scouting and Guiding's astonishing international reach. Many non-religious institutions and movements claim to be world wide, but only the Scouts and Guides can really claim the status. In addition to the book's global sweep, it is unique in the way that it brings together Scouting and Guiding. It not only places them side by side, but explores how they interacted and how gender affected both movements. The analysis presented here reflects a high level of sophistication with respect to gender and age relations. It is aware of the complications of race and class, as well as religion. Indeed, it reflects the cutting edge of a new frontier of historiography."

John R. Gillis, Professor of History Emeritus, Rutgers The State University of New Jersey, and author of Youth and History

Kristine Alexander

Eitan Bar-Yosef

Nelson R. Block

Martin Crotty

Ben Jordan

David Macleod

Jay Mechling

Susan Miller

Sarah Mills

Timothy Parsons

Edward Vallory