published by Jonathan Ball

Cecil John Rhodes has always excited a great deal of heated passion and fierce debate. In his time, he was both revered and reviled, in South Africa and abroad. More recently, he has come to represent the ugly face of white supremacy and European colonialism, which manifested itself in the “Rhodes Must Fall” movement.

In this exhaustive, meticulously researched study, William Kelleher Storey, who is Professor of History and holds the Sanderson Chair of Arts and Science at Millsap College in the United States, sets out to present a fully-rounded picture of a man who was one of the most influential figures in the history of the British Empire.

Rhodes was unquestionably a product of the Victorian era and shared many of the prejudices of the age. As Storey shows, much of his vision was developed during his time at Oxford. Like many of his colleagues, he believed in British racial superiority and shared the same messianic belief in the role of the empire. As ardent imperialists, they thought of the British as the true heirs of the Romans. They believed that they should play a similar role in bringing civilisation to decadent or barbarous people.

Rhodes originally came out to South Africa in 1870, to join his brother, Herbert, who was farming cotton in the Unkomaas Valley, in Natal. Later, he would follow him to the diamond fields of Kimberley. With fortune seekers streaming in from all over the world, they were colourful, chaotic times, and Storey paints a vivid portrait of what life was like on the diggings.

Unlike his contemporaries, it was not enough for Rhodes to make a fortune out of diamonds. As his wealth grew, so did his ambition. Having entered politics as a way of consolidating his power, extending his influence and protecting his corporate interests, he began developing a plan for settler expansion along the Road to the North. It didn’t stop there. By utilising the rail-road and telegraph, his ultimate vision was to extend British power across Africa. When (much exaggerated) rumours of immensely rich gold fields, to the north of the Limpopo, came to his attention, this would also include the creation of his personal country.

An important part of his plan to populate the subcontinent, which Rhodes openly advocated, included the disenfranchisement of Africans. Once he was elected prime minister of the Cape, he set about introducing racially discriminatory policies to further this goal, upsetting the more progressive elements in the Cape political scene, including the outspoken writer Olive Schreiner (who would later skewer him in her novel Trooper Halket of Mashonaland).

Oddly enough, when gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand, Rhodes initially had cold feet but later changed his mind. Again, his decision to become involved was not just about making money for its own sake. It was about furthering his vision by bankrolling exploration and further white settlement in the north.

It was here that Rhodes allowed his ego and grandiose dreams of recasting Africa in his own mould to get the better of his good judgement. Frustrated by the Boers’ attitude to and control of the gold mining industry, he attempted to provoke an insurrection against the government in Pretoria by organising the infamous – and calamitous – Jameson Raid. As a result of the attempted coup, Rhodes was forced to resign as prime minister of the Cape; the good relationships he had, up until then, so carefully cultivated with the Boers, lay in tatters, and he would never quite regain his old power and prestige. Worse was to follow. While Rhodes was attempting to resurrect his reputation and dealing with the fall-out from the raid, the Ndebele, taking courage from Jameson’s failure and the fact that the country had been denuded of troops, rose up in rebellion against his British South Africa Company rule in their territory. This would be followed, in turn, by a similar uprising by the supposedly more docile Shona. The hardening of relations between the British and Boers, which developed in the wake of the Raid, would also ultimately lead to the Anglo-Boer War of 1899-1902.

In delving deeply into Rhodes’s controversial life, Storey has acquired a terrific knowledge of his subject and writes about it with flair. No row, crafty manoeuvre, shrewd manipulation, nor evidence of political wheeler-dealing is left unrecorded. Combining historical scholarship with a highly readable narrative, The Colonialist looks destined to become the authoritative work on Rhodes.

Published by Basic Books

Francis Fukuyama famously proclaimed that the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union marked “the end of history”. In his view, Western-style liberal democracy represented the final stage of social and political development and that ideological conflict would disappear. His bold prediction has proved to have been built on a shaky foundation. Contrary to the belief that the neoliberal precepts that became dominant in the 1970s were an unqualified success, life in the West has become harder for most people, albeit more comfortable for the thin tier at the top.

With this has come a gradual power shift. By the beginning of the 21st Century there were clear signs that American power had passed its zenith and that its economic and hence strategic dominance in world affairs was in decline. China and India, endowed with vast territory and huge populations, had become the rising stars of the show.

Unsurprisingly, given their belief in their exceptionalism, this has rung alarm bells in the United States. President Donald Trump was re-elected for a second term in office, on an electoral ticket in which he promised to “Make America Great Again”. So far, that hasn’t happened. Not only has the American economy weakened, but Trump’s slash-and-burn approach to foreign policy has alienated many world leaders and undermined, rather than enhanced, trust and respect for the country abroad.

As many countries seek to insulate themselves from Washington’s gravitational pull, a new post-Western order is emerging. In this scholarly, wide-ranging and critical overview. Amitav Acharya, who is the distinguished professor of international affairs at American University, argues that this will not necessarily result in a turn for the worse or lead to a collapse in the global order.

In making his case, Acharya delves deep into the realms of history. Taking ancient Sumer as his starting point, he shows how successive civilisations, across the world, contributed to the current world order over a long time. In doing so, he challenges certain long-held views, among them the common Western assumption that their civilisation began, essentially, with the Greeks.. As he rightly points out, this ignores the influence of the world to the East. Greece had strong Asiatic foundations and borrowed many of its ideas about science, art, sculpture, technology and government from these surrounding cultures, which they then passed on to Rome and the rest of Europe.

Thereafter, the author examines each continent, in turn, from the great civilisations of India and China in the east to the Aztecs and Incas in the Americas, weaving in frequent reminders of how each society synthesised and developed the traditions of those that had gone before. There is an insightful chapter on Africa, tracing its role in the global history of empire building and outlining how its indigenous economies were severely disrupted by the transatlantic slave trade and European colonisation, the effects of which are still being felt today.
This makes way for an analysis of the rise of the West, culminating in the global dominance of the United States. While the Western world order was, on one level, a force for modernity, it also has had its limitations and dark side, such as racism, exploitation and discrimination. Resistance to colonialism led to new actors emerging, who demanded a repositioning of how things were done and insisted on the establishment of a more inclusive world.

With the wheel of fortune turning away from the West, the obvious question arises: what will replace it? Acharya offers various scenarios but believes it will mostly be a shared enterprise and will not be dominated by any single nation.

It is a complex and nuanced subject, but Acharya navigates this fascinating journey through the centuries with great skill while offering a cool and well-reasoned critique of the current world order.