Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #96719 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-23
• Released on: 2008-09-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781586486419
• Condition: New
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Review
"Despite the depth of scholarly research it contains, this book reads not as dry history but as a vivid and thrilling account of the forging of southern Africa into its present distinctive shape and character. Martin Meredith captures the colours and textures of the land and brings to life the extraordinary figures who peopled it and whose influence lingers on. His descriptions of Rhodes and Kruger, of Robinson and Barnato and all the other actors, rogues and heroes of this epic drama played out upon the scorched African veldt are filled with fascinating insights and rich with anecdotes which bring them bursting from these pages. This is a book that will take a prominent place upon my bookshelf and which I know I will re-read time and again over the years ahead." -- Wilbur Smith, author of The Quest and River God

"Enthralling....Martin Meredith has made good use not only of recent scholarly work by also of contemporary sources... [Meredith] tells the story lucidly so that the reader can draw his own moral." -- The Spectator, October 31, 2007

"Meredith offers an unvarnished portrait of what might be called 'Britain's worst hour... Diamonds, Gold, and War is a fine history of the formation of the most powerful country in Africa. It will certainly make uncomfortable reading for Rhodes' scholars, who may be shocked to learn of the bloodshed caused by the man whose name they wear with pride." -- The American, October 26, 2007

"No stone is left unturned in this dynamic analysis of an intriguing period in African history." -- Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2007

"[an] astute history... Meredith expertly shows how the exigencies of the diamond (and then gold) rush laid the foundation for apartheid." -- New Yorker, October 8, 2007

"engrossing...Anyone interested in African history and the British Empire will find this book fascinating." -- Winnipeg Free Press, October 7, 2007

"A many-faceted, sensibly incisive overview of events that could easily be oversimplified, and have been in earlier accounts." -- New York Times, November 29, 2007

About the Author

Customer Reviews

A brilliant book
This is one of the best histories of Africa written in modern times from one of Africa's greatest chroniclers. A vast history of Southern Africa from 1871 to 1911 this is an epic tale of greed, settlement and war set amongst some fo the most colorful peoples and characters of the period. Mostly the book examines the personalities of Cecil Rhodes and Paul Kruger and the clash of the English and the Afrikaners. But it is bigger in scope than that. Blending history covered elsewhere(The Great Anglo-Boer War and The Scramble for Africa: White Man's Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876-1912, The Washing of the Spears: A History of the Rise of the Zulu Nation Under Shaka and Its Fall in the Zulu War of 1879) it also has an incisive and balanced view of the history, without judgement, this is more a tale of tragedy, in the Greek form, than mere history.

History at its best in fact. The book moves from the discovery of diamonds near Kimberly in 1871, to the battle for the control of the 'road north' to modern day Zambia and the final destruction of Afrikaner freedom in the Boer War. All the while in the background is the developing race issues and multitude of diversity that would chance Africa forever in the 20th century.

For students of African history this will be a rivetting read and for those looking for an introduction to the history of Southern Africa they will be pleasently suprised.

Seth J. Frantzman

This book made me angry and ashamed - but read it, please!
I have read several books (though certainly not enough) about South Africa: 'The Great Boer War,' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; 'The Corner House,' by A.P. Cartwright; 'The Randlords,' by Geoffrey Wheatcroft; 'White Tribe Dreaming,' by Marq de Villiers; 'The Boer War,' by Thomas Pakenham; and 'The Covenant,' by James A. Michener, but until I got into my latest purchase, 'Diamonds, Gold and War,' by Martin Meredith, I was not entirely sure why I had become more than sympathetic to the old Boers and to Afrikanerdom.

Mr Meredith has given me all of the necessary reasons and, as a life-time admirer of the British Empire and its works, I was made more firmly angry and ashamed at what some of those ostensibly promoting the Empire had done to those to whom the British people should have been attached and who should not have been antagonised and attacked.

Cecil Rhodes's dream of colonising from The Cape to Cairo had great merit, especially if one recalls to what depths much of Africa has descended since Rhodes's day, but it was clearly a gross mistake and an unforgivable deed to betray his Cape Boer friend, Jan Hofmeyr, and his potential friends, President Paul Kruger of The Transvaal and President Marthinus Steyn of The Orange Free State. Rhodes comes out of the book badly, as do his co-conspirator, Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, the British Colonial Secretary, Joseph Chamberlain, and, worst of all, the British High Commissioner and Governor of the Cape Colony, Sir Alfred Milner.

And, of course, there were the thousands of British soldiers lost (my wife's late grandfather, a wonderful man, volunteered for the Imperial Yeomanry, went enthusiastically to South Africa, but, thankfully, survived this shameful Imperial episode), and the thousands of Boer 'soldiers,' their wives and their children who suffered either in the war (to be more precise, the Second Boer War) or in British concentration camps. It was a disgrace and several passages in Mr Meredith's book moves one almost to tears. The description of the elderly President Kruger's leaving of Pretoria for eventual exile on the 29th of May, 1900, leaving his beloved but infirm wife, Gezina, is one such and merits partial quotation:

'After conducting family prayers in the sitting room, Kruger took his wife's hand and led her into the bedroom. Nobody spoke or moved. Outside the carriage horses snorted. Then the old couple reappeared. Kruger pressed her against him, then released her, looking at her intently, silently. Then he turned and walked out to the carriage. They were never to meet again.'

I am old enough to have known a number of honourable men who went off to fight 'Old Kroojer': they were misguided, misled and mistaken. That Jan Christian Smuts later became one of the Empire's best friends is a fine reflection of Boer qualities, but the bitterness bequeathed by such as Milner did no good to Britain nor to the longer-term benefit of South Africa or its inhabitants, black or white.

I can only touch on some aspects of a brilliant and well-written history: to get the drift in its entirety, you have to get the book which, with 569 pages, is wonderful value!

For a great rendering of the old Boer song, 'Sarie Marais,' sung in Afrikaans, go to - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrvEwv26WLc

[...]

A gripping chronicle of greed and destruction unleashed
Journalist, biographer, and historian Martin Meredith presents Diamonds, Gold, and War: The British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa, a thorough history of the Cape Colony in southern Africa from when the British took possession of it in 1806 to the founding of modern South Africa in 1910. The chronicle heats up in 1871, when diamonds were discovered in southern Africa - in tremendous quantities. A massive struggle between the British and the Boers for control of the region erupted. Meredith's narrative is heavily researched yet comes alive with colorful portrayals of personalities ranging from rakish prospector Cecil Rhodes (founder of the DeBeers company) who absconded with a fortune manipulating diamond and gold markets, to nationalists like Paul Kruger who fought tirelessly for their land and people, to native kings like Lobengula who were trapped amid the Europeans' struggle. A gripping chronicle of greed and destruction unleashed, and the repercussions for the nation of South Africa for the century to come, highly recommended for world history shelves.