Diamonds, Gold, and War: The British, the Boers, and the Making of South Africa

Southern Africa was once regarded as a worthless jumble of British colonies, Boer republics, and African chiefdoms, a troublesome region of little interest to the outside world. But then prospectors chanced upon the world’s richest deposits of diamonds and gold, setting off a titanic struggle between the British and the Boers for control of the land. The result was the costliest, bloodiest, and most humiliating war that Britain had waged in nearly a century, and the devastation of the Boer republics. The New Yorker calls this magisterial account of those years “[an] astute history.… Meredith expertly shows how the exigencies of the diamond (and then gold) rush laid the foundation for apartheid.” Product DetailsISBN-13: 9781586486419 Media Type: Paperback Publisher: PublicAffairs Publication Date: 09-23-2008 Pages: 592 Product Dimensions: 5.60(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.70(d)About the Author Martin Meredith is a journalist, biographer, and historian who has written extensively on Africa and its