Brodsky contends that three factors--constitutional, commercial, and technological--in turn, have caused Britain to raise large citizen forces. Because Britain traditionally has been an unmilitary state which has not maintained large standing armies, this ethos of amateurism merged with the professionalism of the Regular Army. He argues that it is this unique influence of amateurism which historically has been central to the British profession of arms and vital to its spirit of service. A wide range of prose and poetry illustrates that spirit and the military cultural experience in which it evolved in Great Britain from the Restoration through World War II. In an overview of later developments, including the Falklands War, Brodsky enunciates the challenge facing the traditional ethos in the nuclear age. Analyzing the effect of the literary idiom, he questions the future direction of representative literature.

Born into a Polish szlachta (noble) family, the extraordinary modern novelist Joseph Conrad maintained, even in exile, strong ties to his Polish heritage and culture. Yet the author earned renown by writing in English, often about nautical adventures in remote parts of the world. In Joseph Conrad's Polish Soul, G. W. Stephen Brodsky seeks to reclaim the essentially Polish sensibility of Conrad's groundbreaking oeuvre. He finds in Conrad's work a distinct Polonism that plays intriguingly with selfhood, freedom, and irony. For Brodsky, Conrad's outlook and writing betray numerous contradictions. Despite the novelist's practical realism, Conrad was drawn to romance, orientalism, and the exotic. Frequently sick, he nevertheless pursued a life at sea. He despised adventurers, yet loved risk. An instinctive skepticism, conservatism, and nationalism complicated his liberalism and respect for humanity, and though he resigned himself to Poland's tragic destiny, Conrad refused to despair over the terribleness of his times. In this incomparable study, Brodsky shows how these inherent aspects of Conrad's personality inform and guide his Polonism, along with the best attributes of his fiction.