The war declared by the Boers on 11 October 1899 proved to be the longest, the costliest, the bloodiest and the most humiliating campaign that Britain fought between 1815 and 1914. This history of the war is based largely on private papers of the conflict's leading protagonists.

The war declared by the Boers on 11 October 1899 gave the British, as Kipling said, "no end of a lesson". It proved to be the longest, the costliest, the bloodiest and the most humiliating campaign that Britain fought between 1815 and 1914. Thomas Pakenham has written a full-scale history of the war, based on first-hand and largely unpublished sources ranging from the private papers of the leading protagonists to the recollections of survivors from both sides.

A masterpiece of military history, overturning many received ideas. Working over unexamined archives, and talking to survivors, Pakenham casts new light on the origins and the course of the Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902, from which modern South Africa derives. He reveals a link between Milner, the governor-general who provoked the war, and Rhodes and Beit, the gold-mine owners who wanted to profit from it; he explains the quarrels between the British generals, who fought each other when they had time to spare from fighting the Boers; he helps to rehabilitate Buller, whom he shows at least to have done his best; and he emphasizes the importance of the black inhabitants, who provided a fifth of the war's 60,000-odd dead, and have been ignored in many previous works on the subject. A fine display of understanding of the past. (Kirkus UK)