ABSTRACT
Attempts to persuade people to fight are as old as conflict itself and have taken many different forms over the course of recorded history. Public spectacles, cultural artefacts and monoliths were among the first discussed in this book and were complemented by the spoken and written words and by appeals carried in and across mass and digital media. The military recruitment campaign, as it has been explored in this book, is a product of such historical forces. Merging ancient traditions of military pageantry and iconography with the persuasive strategies and techniques of the modern advertising, public relations and media industries, it has become an intrinsically mediated phenomenon that is central to war and representations of it. This chapter will draw some broader conclusions about the legacy of such campaigns. Beginning with a review of recruiting exhortations, it seeks to answer a question posed at the outset of this book – were similar appeals used to encourage civilians to serve in different countries, regions and periods? – and then considers whether such appeals were actually effective. The final sections consider potential future avenues of scholarly research and what the future might have in store for us all as we approach a critical juncture in human history.
