Rating: 
Summary: A must read for anyone who wants to understand modern RSA
Review: A very well researched book. I found it so exciting that I could not lay it down. I buy it for all my visitors to South Africa. It helps to understand how South Africa developed in the past 100 years and provides insight to the emergence of political, social and business developments. Despite the horrors of war, the book describes innovations which occured. Although born in the UK in the end I have great sympathy for the Afrikaaners and the sufferings they endured in the name of preserving South Africa for the crown.
Rating:
Summary: Well done!
Review: A well done narrative of the Boer War. Pakenham has written a book which resists the easy path of political correctness and dosen't engage in simple minded ideology. He has attempted to show both sides as truthfully as possible. His one very daring act is the effort to show General Buller in a different light - going against decades of historians that have written him off as nothing but an incompetent. Just another example of the idiots that were in charge of the British military in the ninteenth century, as if comptence in the British Army ceased to exsist after Wellington died. It is a bold attempt and one which I believe Pakenham does very well. Pakenham also excells in his effort to show how very difficult it is to maintain control of troops on the battlefield. Garbeled communications, faulty intelligence,monumental egos, morale, unexpected effects of new weapons metting up with outdated tactics - all of these and more are detailed beautifully by Pakenham. I was somewhat suprised that the Boers are shown as not all conquering and often had even more problems then the British. Their troops were wildly undisciplined and were better at partisan warfare or serving in defensive actions. When it came to offensive action against disciplined troops the Boers were actually miserable failures. This is a common trait found in what is now know as "irregular forces". Pakenham looks at both sides and shows that war could have been avoided at almost every step, but personal and national egos and ambition kept getting in the way. Naturally Pakenham draws the inevitable comparisons to World War One and they are very clear. All in all this is a balanced and very readable work. When I first picked it up I was unsure of what I would find. In the past I've found many of the modern African historians to be extremely left wing and lacking in perspective. Pakenham is an exception to the rule and for that I give him five stars. Well done!
Rating:
Summary: One of the two best works on the white man in africa
Review: An absolutely fantastic work of history, covering with the neccessary depth the events and personalities, with a particularly fine analysis of the political background to the war, both in Britain and in South Africa.
Rating:
Summary: Vivid writing, primary sources, comprehensive understanding
Review: Are there any lessons in this book that could have been useful in the prosecution of the USA invasion of Iraq ? Yes. By standing on the aircraft carrier in 2003 behind a sign which proclaimed "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" is it likely that President Bush or any of his advisers had read this book? No. Battles might be over but the war clearly is not.
And who will be the losers? And what are the costs? Long term? Much of the horror of 20th century warfare - trench warfare, concentration camps, shooting or otherwise mistreating prisoners - was carried out in the Boer war. Some readers, and I am a general reader not an historian, will have been aware of elements of the Boer War such as the shooting of prisoners by Lt "Breaker Morant" which was and is something of a cause celebre in Australia retold in books, plays and a fine contemporary film. But the one feeling I have after reading this fine book by Mr Pakenham is a far greater sympathy for the Boers and a much better appreciation of the contribution and sacrifice that black Africans made in what was touted as a "white man's" war. In fact it was a black man's war too with c100,000 black riflemen seeing duty, and fighting in effect for the right to vote. Mr Pakenham provides evidence to suggest that the successful survival by the British at the siege of Mafeking was made possible by the sacrifice of black Africans.
Item: 3500 horses perished in one day in one cavalry charge.
Item: 400,000 horses, mules, donkeys died in total
Item: Lord Kitchener invented the concentration camp using a Spanish model re Cubans
Item: The British military and politicians did not care about the thousands of women and children in concentration camps and as the result of disgusting conditions many many died as a result.
Item: It was not superior marksmanship or courage that won, but the application of the knowledge that defence was superior to attack with the new, smokeless, high velocity, weapons.
The book is very well written, with a reliance on much primary source material, especially diaries and letters of the major British protagonists
including Sir Alfred Milner, High Commissioner for South Africa and Lt Governor of Cape Colony who is revealed in his own words as a thoroughly despicable character. The reader also gets a very real feeling for the exigencies of the landscape, the boredom of routine for the military, the clash of battle where the stones on the ground or the mud on the banks of a river become as frighteningly real as the whizz and splat of dum dum bullets. Clearly the writer has experienced the landscape firsthand. The reader also gets a very real picture of the characters involved, their weaknesses and strengths, including some ordinary and very likeable soldiers or "Tommy's".
The likely causes and consequences of the war are made clear to the reader. The usual suspects - imperial supremacy of the British; greed for gold, diamonds; denial of franchise; nationalism - are covered and a re-evaluation of the protaganists undertaken. It is a fair and balanced re-assessment of the task faced by General Sir Redvers Buller and his inability to overcome it whilst appreciating his intelligent appraisal of the situation he found himself in. On the other hand it reveals Lord Kitchener as arrogant and hard working but overrated and over-compensated for his role. The book also emphasises the CRITICAL role of transport and supply.
We are still living with the consequences of it today but one redeeming reality is that democracy and a free press are likely to inhibit a repetition. What was that? Guantanomo Bay? Oil? Imperialism? Franchise? Prisons?
Rating:
Summary: Totally engrossing book
Review: Exposing the origins of the war as basically blatant attempt by jingoistic imperialists like Milner, in Britain, in league with Cecil Rhodes and his (...)cronies, to grab power (and gold, and diamond) in South Africa. It must be said that the Boers were not exactly victims in the war, prior to that they had inflicted much sufferings on the Blacks and were now getting their just desserts for past sins.
The British Army also came out of this war with a sullied reputation for sexual depravity (Lord kitchener, Baden Powell, Douglas Haig), inept generalship. plunder, pillage, indiscrminate and wanton destruction of life and property, as well as pioneering the use of concentration camps for Boer women and children, who were deliberatedly left out in the cold to rot, and die from hunger, disease and assorted inhumane treatments.
What is amazing was that the Boers were totally reconciled with their imperial masters and co-colonists in one generation, and would enlist en masse in fighting for the rotten British Empire in the Great War. Apparently, the deal was struck that high sounding Victorian Britain would look the other way on the mistreatment and apartheid policies in South Africa, provided the Boers pay fealty to their London masters after the peace.
The Boer War, in essence, was a war fought between 2 unscrupulous, greedy races over the spoils, both material and human, of Africa.
Rating: 
Summary: Great book, but first read Scramble for Africa
Review: Having got this at the same time as Scramble for Africa (same author, which also lightly covered this war) I was not expecting much. I was very suprised to find that the Boer war is very intriguing in itself. I have to admit that I like Packenhams style and find his history books read like Novels. Of course they are history books and there is a lot to learn so take your time. If you haven't read Scramble for Africa then read that first, then the Boer war will give you more detail (within context of the whole African scramble) of how South Africa became what it was and is. The book basically describes that this war should never have happened, and only did so because of the greed of individuals and the incompetence of the British government. Then the war that followed gave a preview of what might happen in a World War (WWI) although few lessons seem to have been learned.
Rating:
Summary: A wealth of historical information on The Boer War
Review: I was loaned this book by a friend some years back, and must say that it is well worth the time. The book provides excellent background information on the causes of the Boer War, as well as the significant players. Details of battles, as well as the experiences of the common folk who experienced the war at ground-level. I enjoyed this book so much that I bought my own copy to re-read. Well-researched and well-written. I highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: Sensational book
Review: I'm very pleased that Thomas Pakenham's classic has been reissued as an affordable paperback. Now I can stop borrowing the library's hardcover copy. This is without doubt the finest, most authoritative general history of the Boer War. Pakenham's lively writing style makes the book readable and enjoyable, and the scholarship is so good that you know what you are reading is reliable.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent historical work
Review: In my opinion, works of history are to be judged by two standards: (1)Is it readable? Much history is dry, wooden, and laborious. Pakenham's book, however, is exceptionally readable. The narrative flows quickly, and while at first it is sometimes difficult to keep tabs on all the players, he seems mindful of this, and reminds the reader why a certain character is re-entering the story. But much history that is readable is just as often trite, superficial, hopelessly popularized, or worse, just plain bad history. This brings me to the second standard (2): Does the author interact with the original sources? Or does he/she merely repeat what others have written on the subject? Pakenham did his research. He engages original sources, actually interviewed Boer War veterans, and even did some interesting detective work to uncover more documents germaine to the topic. Many of his conclusions are probably controversial, but whether one agrees with him or not, one has to grant that he does engage the original sources. One more thing worth mentioning: This work is noticably lacking in the self-concious national self-flagelation that marks historical scholarship in the last decade. There is no need for Pakenham to say, "Imperialism was so awful!", because he lets the historical actions (and actors) speak for themselves. The result is a moral stance that is not pedantically moralistic.
Rating:
Summary: valuable lessons
Review: On re-reading Pakenham's wonderful history, I couldn't help but draw parallels between Milner, Chamberlain and the Gold Bugs efforts to provoke the Ultimatum (and war) from Kroger and the Boers to those of Bush administration and Tony Blair in angling for a fight against Saddam. It's almost the same script!
|
