• Author: Damian P O'Connor
• Publisher: Able Publishing
• ISBN: 1-903607-29-9

Review By : Summary

In 1879, British forces invaded Zululand at the instigation of Sir Bartle Frere and against the direct orders of the Government in London.  The resulting defeat at Isandlwana and the heroic defense of Rorke’s Drift have since passed into legend and inspired a mass of scholarship on this most famous of Britain’s imperial wars. 

 

Relatively little attention has been focused on the causes of the war, however, and much of this interest has been concerned with the question of race and economic imperialism within a South African context.  This book challenges these perspectives by setting the Anglo-Zulu War in the broader context of an empire forced to compete in order to survive in a world where Britain’s naval and imperial supremacy were being called increasingly into questions.

 

Drawing on new research in London, Washington and South Africa, it also provides a more complex picture of the man who started the war and who has since been incorrectly stereotyped as the very picture of an imperial villain.

 

Damian O’Connor holds a Master Degree in History and currently teaches for a living.

Wednesday 01st of February 2006 11:23:39 AM