Michael Hughes obtained his Doctorate in Economic and Social History from the University of Glasgow in 2016. His life changed when he fully lost his eyesight in 1998. It gave him the opportunity, however, to change direction away from Quality Engineering and to devote more time to collecting military artefacts. He subsequently combined his academic ability and interest in the social life and function of military and political symbols to complete his doctorate and conducted further research resulting in this book. He describes himself as a reformed collector and is doing his best to resist accumulating things.