CECIL JOHN RHODES was one of the giants, of British Imperial history, a man of incredible vision, energy and enterprise. Sent to South Africa from England at the age of 17 in 1870, without money or prospects and in poor health, he had, by the time he was 37, taken his degree at Oxford, gained control of the world's diamond industry, became a powerful influence in the Transvaal goldfields, obtained important mineral rights in the trans-Limpopo territory of Mashonaland, created the British South Africa Company which pioneered Rhodesia, become Prime Minister of the Cape Colony and a legend in his own lifetime. It was Rhodes's dream to create universal peace through the agency of a world power comprising Great Britain and the United States of America, and to build a great federation in southern Africa as the first stage in Britain's Cape-to-Cairo domain. A man of such monumental ambition was, not surprisingly, a complex personality and few could claim to know him well. Sir James McDonald was one of his close associates for twelve years and had personal experience of the great man's warm humanity - a privilege enjoyed by few of his biographers and detractors His biography, which ran to numerous editions when it was first published in 1927, is notable for the intimate light it throws on Rhodes's character and career. McDonald was encouraged to write it by Rudyard Kipling.

 

Return to BOOK SALES