Internationalism provided another momentous frontier for U.S. Scouts eager to inscribe themselves in debates about America’s global role in the interwar period. Focusing on the first two decades of the world jamboree movement, chapter 3 details how BSA delegates, both old and young, participated in the cultural reconstruction of nations and empires through world Scouting. Although the world jamborees thrived on a rhetoric of demobilization, identifying peace as a worthwhile pursuit for young men, the colorful parades of Boy Scouts from across the globe, whose performances of universal brotherhood were curtailed by national loyalties and imperial rivalries, rejuvenated old ideas of civilizational difference. Economic disparities, colonial hierarchies, and a persistent Anglocentrism made the world jamborees an uneven affair, with serious implications for how U.S. Scouts learned to balance global aspirations and duty to the nation.
‘A Life of Make-Believe’: Being Boy Scouts and ‘Playing Indian’ in British Malaya (1910-42)
