Zulu Rising
- Author: Ian Knight >
- Publisher: Macmillans >
- Publish Date: 31/03/2010 >
Review By : Adrian Greaves
Ian Knight\'s new book is a mamoth re-telling of the battles of iSandlwana and Rorke\'s Drift, the culmination of more than thirty years of study. It sets the battle within the context of a catastrophic clash of cultures, examining the effect of British Imperial expansion on the Zulu border communities at Rorke\'s Drift, and in particular on the life of Mehlokazulu Ngobese. Mehlokazulu\'s famously ruthless punishment of his father\'s errant wives - who had sought sanctuary in Natal with their lovers - is here seen as the culmination of decades of Zulu frustration with the corrosive effects of British influence, a defining moment in an inevitable fracture in Anglo-Zulu affairs, and one from which the slaughter at iSandlwana directly flowed. The battle itself is explored through the lives and words of those who took part on both sides - through Mehlokazulu himself, through Muziwento, the \'Zulu boy\' who lived near the battlefield and whose family was invitably sucked into the conflict, through the experience of Anthony Durnford, for whom the invasion of Zululand offered a hope of personal and professional redemption, and in the words of young British officers like Charlie Harford, Horace Smith-Dorrien and William Cochrane, and ordinary soldiers like Kumbeka Qwabe of the uVe or Fred Symons of the Natal Carbineers. \'Zulu Rising\' reveals the deeper layers of conflict which underpinned the story of iSandlwana, and explores the battles iconic status in the history of both South Africa and the British Empire. Most of all, it is Ian Knight\'s most ambitious book to date, and an eloquent and exhaustive study of an event which was both epic and brutal, dramatic and poignant - but above all a tragedy which blighted the lives of almost all those who took part.
Wednesday 21st of October 2009 12:22:48 PM