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English
Oxford University Press
24 July 2025
This is the first comprehensive biography of Cecil Rhodes in a generation.

This critical work elaborates the life and times of Rhodes, showing how his racist politics impacted mining, industry, transportation, warfare, and society, while discussing how his controversial policies fueled a lasting white-dominated colonial society and had an enduring influence on modern South Africa.

Cecil John Rhodes became one of the most influential people in the history of the British Empire. He made a fortune in South Africa by leading the world's most important diamond mining company, De Beers, as well as a gold-mining concern called Consolidated Gold Fields. While he was a busy entrepreneur, he was also a member of the Cape Colony's legislature and served as prime minister from 1890 to 1896, a key period for the development of racial discrimination. His British South Africa Company was given a charter to govern what is today Zambia and Zimbabwe. His most famous legacy is the Rhodes Trust, which funds the Rhodes Scholarships at Oxford University.

A complex figure, admired and detested in his own time, Rhodes dreamt to unite Southern Africa's colonies and republics into one state, dominated by white settlers, with labor provided by Black people who were constrained and pressured by discriminatory laws. He built his wealth on the backs of African migrant laborers, for whom he had little regard. His British South Africa Company was accused of fraud. And in 1895 and 1896, he famously encouraged a failed plot to overthrow the independent Boer republic in the Transvaal. Rhodes' coup helped to precipitate the South African War, which started in 1899 and ended in 1902, the year of Rhodes' death.

This authoritative biography focuses on the relationship between Rhodes' well-known activities in business and politics and the development of Southern Africa's infrastructure, most famously his plan for a Cape-to-Cairo railway. Rhodes envisioned a region where racism became embedded in the mining, farming, communication, and transportation industries. He pursued this vision in the face of opposition from many quarters. Understanding the extent of Rhodes' activities helps us to understand the challenges of modern Africa and the recent Rhodes Must Fall movement. A critical analysis of this contested figure, The Colonialist offers an original portrait of a crucial figure of his era.
By:  
Imprint:   Oxford University Press
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 234mm,  Width: 165mm,  Spine: 46mm
Weight:   885g
ISBN:   9780199811359
ISBN 10:   0199811350
Pages:   480
Publication Date:  
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  Undergraduate ,  Further / Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active

William Kelleher Storey is Professor of History and Dean of Arts and Humanities at Millsaps College. He is the author of Guns, Race, and Power in Colonial South Africa and Writing History: A Guide for Students, among other books. Storey has been recognized as statewide Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Reviews for The Colonialist: The Vision of Cecil Rhodes

William Kelleher Storey has given us the most exhaustive and meticulously researched biography of one of the most consequential figures of the modern age. While the notoriously megalomanic Rhodes saw himself as a colossus standing astride Africa and the British Empire, Storey cuts him wonderfully down to size to show us a flawed historical figure who was and is so fascinating precisely because he was so human. Storey reminds us of a man who failed more than he succeeded, who owed his success more to the contingencies of life than to genius, and who was a provincial whose influence extends around the globe. We live, for better and for worse, in the world that Rhodes wrought. It behooves us to understand him. Thanks to Storey, we can say we do. * Jacob S. Dlamini, Princeton University * This deeply researched book focuses on Rhodes's colonial vision for southern Africa which was rooted in mining, railways, and scientific agriculture. A do-er rather than a thinker, Rhodes's imprint on the country has more to do with his actions in support of white colonial expansion than his thought. This is apt to be forgotten in recent debates. Storey's rigorous analysis of Rhodes's material legacy in Southern Africa represents a major contribution to the field. * Saul Dubow, Cambridge University *


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