Elite stories, everyday lessons, new opportunities? Masculinity in the ‘militarised self-help’ genre and implications for vernacular security studies

Recent years have seen a burgeoning genre of ‘militarised self-help’ books in which current or ex-military personnel recount their experiences in war and seek to convey how lessons learned in this environment can serve the civilian readership in their everyday life. Having sold millions of copies and regularly appeared on bestseller lists, the popular appeal and wide readership of these books is firmly established. In this chapter I argue that these features mean they have important constitutive effects upon (in)security and can serve as valuable objects of study within vernacular security studies. Specifically, I argue that the valorisation of a particular military masculinity is fundamental for the purposes of rendering the author as an authentic and authoritative voice whose experiences and guidance has wider ‘everyday’ application. In my analysis of, ‘First man in’ by Ant Middleton, I argue this is achieved in three ways: (i) by explaining the role of the military in making tough men, (ii) by making visible the author’s masculinised identity and, (iii) via relations of difference with civilian and subordinate military masculinities. Through this analysis the chapter aims to respond to epistemological questions posed within vernacular security studies by exploring how this genre perpetuates gendered security imaginaries and considers its potential to inform vernacular securities via the extension of everyday militarisation.