Africa

The Republic of Guinea has been the scene over the centuries of several attempts at state-building. Basil Davidson records how the memory of past achievements strongly influences West Africa today.

Edna Bradlow writes that while Paul Kruger felt he had an obligation to protect his country's moral right on behalf of the Transvaal Republic, Chamberlain, speaking for his own countrymen, declared that the issue involved both “our supremacy in South Africa and our existence as a great power”.

During the sultry summer of 1911, writes Frank Hardie, a conflict between Commons and Lords presented King George V with one of the most difficult problems of his reign.

During the Mamluk Sultanate, writes P.M. Holt, men imported as slaves and trained as warriors became rulers of a great Islamic state.

Derek Severn describes how the assault secured the release of many slaves and much ransom money but Barbary pirates remained a menace until the French annexation.

George Grey was governor in succession of South Australia, New Zealand, Cape Colony and New Zealand again. Cyril Hamshere charts a most remarkable career in the Victorian Colonial service.

Europe knew little about black Africa, writes Steven R. Smith, until the trading voyages of the late sixteenth century.

The term ‘Chimurenga’ has various historical associations. It was originally used to describe the first rising against British rule of the 1890s; the Rhodesian Bush War of the 1970s is known as the Second Chimurenga. J.V. Woolford, writing as the Bush War was ongoing, puts the term in context.

J.V. Woolford describes how the defeat of the Matabele in 1893 led to the direct rule of Southern Rhodesia by the British South Africa Company.

In the 1890s, writes J.V. Woolford, the colony of Rhodesia was a centre of conflict between Matabele warriors and the Mashona in which the British became involved on the Mashona side.