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Cecil Rhodes was an imposing figure, tall, robust-looking, with a leonine head, a man so charismatic that one contemporary claimed that "belief in Rhodes was a substitute for religion." But he was certainly a man of contradictions. He was a dreamy idealist whose favorite book was The Meditations of ...

Cecil Rhodes was an imposing figure, tall, robust-looking, with a leonine head, a man so charismatic that one contemporary claimed that "belief in Rhodes was a substitute for religion." But he was certainly a man of contradictions. He was a dreamy idealist whose favorite book was The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius and a ruthless businessman whose guiding principle was "every man has his price." He supported invidious racial laws in South Africa, and invented and sponsored the world-renowned Rhodes Scholarships. Though his own education and intellectual talents were unprepossessing, he dominated the British Empire and became one of the leading figures in the English-speaking world, the confidant of Queen Victoria and Kaiser Wilhelm, and a man of vast wealth and world-wide influence. Based on seventeen years of research, this monumental volume offers the definitive biography of one of the most controversial figures of the nineteenth century. Rhodes was truly larger than life, and this book captures that life in fascinating detail. It offers an astute portrait of Rhodes' childhood and adolescence, informed by insights from modern psychology; it vividly depicts life on a nineteenth-century African cotton farm (Rhodes' first venture) and in mining camps around Kimberley and the Witwatersrand; it traces the surreptitious stock buyouts and mergers that allowed Rhodes to gain control over 90% of the world's diamond production by age thirty-five; it describes his campaigns against African populations that allowed him to establish Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia); and it discusses the poorly planned, disastrous raid on the Transvaal that destroyed Rhodes' reputation. A conqueror and colonial monarch, Cecil Rhodes presided arrogantly over the fate of southern Africa. But he also built lasting economic institutions, furthered transportation and communication links, improved agriculture, and fervently believed that he used his wealth and power to advance the best interests of the British Empire and Africa. This biography illuminates a complex and fascinating life, a life both evil and good.

This contributed volume explores the relationship between imperialism, railways, and informal empire. Contributors account for the origins of main lines in several independent and self-governing countries. The essays reflect on the imperial and anti-imperial effects of railways, whose rails traced ...

This contributed volume explores the relationship between imperialism, railways, and informal empire. Contributors account for the origins of main lines in several independent and self-governing countries. The essays reflect on the imperial and anti-imperial effects of railways, whose rails traced the divergent paths of expanding capitalism, imperial strategy, modernizing nationalism, and the origins of main lines in selected independent and self-governing countries. The railway has often been studied from the standpoint of imperialism; this book makes a beginning with studying imperialism from the standpoint of the railway.

From 1902 until the mid-1930s, Southern Rhodesia was swept by a series of panics, known by the name Black Peril, prompted by the presumed sexual threat to white women by black men. Tension over Black Peril provoked a flood of legislation designed to control the sexuality of African men and women and ...

From 1902 until the mid-1930s, Southern Rhodesia was swept by a series of panics, known by the name Black Peril, prompted by the presumed sexual threat to white women by black men. Tension over Black Peril provoked a flood of legislation designed to control the sexuality of African men and women and the sexual "transgressions" of white females, including the introduction of the death penalty for attempted rape. Over the next decades more than 20 men were executed, though many were innocent of any serious crime. As Jock McCulloch shows, the panics were complex events which encompassed such issues as miscegenation, the management of venereal disease, the politics of concubinage, and the construction of whiteness. The way in which the state and civil society responded to those controversies was important in establishing the boundaries of race, class, and gender. Driven by fear and the desire for retribution and cleansing, the panics also involved very real demonstrations of state power. They served the interests of the white community by dramatizing the dangers it faced, thereby giving it some leverage against its enemies. But as this history shows, those gains only came at a price.