Thomas Pakenham is the author of The Mountains of Rasselas, The Year of Liberty, The Scramble for Africa, Meetings with Remarkable Trees and Remarkable Trees of the World. He divides his time between London and Ireland. He is married to the writer Valerie Pakenham and they have four children.
A masterpiece of military history, overturning many received ideas. Working over unexamined archives, and talking to survivors, Pakenham casts new light on the origins and the course of the Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902, from which modern South Africa derives. He reveals a link between Milner, the governor-general who provoked the war, and Rhodes and Beit, the gold-mine owners who wanted to profit from it; he explains the quarrels between the British generals, who fought each other when they had time to spare from fighting the Boers; he helps to rehabilitate Buller, whom he shows at least to have done his best; and he emphasizes the importance of the black inhabitants, who provided a fifth of the war's 60,000-odd dead, and have been ignored in many previous works on the subject. A fine display of understanding of the past. (Kirkus UK)