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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
58 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent historical work,
By Patrick (Tennessee) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Boer War (Paperback)
In my opinion, works of history are to be judged by two standards: (1)Is it readable? Much history is dry, wooden, and laborious. Pakenham's book, however, is exceptionally readable. The narrative flows quickly, and while at first it is sometimes difficult to keep tabs on all the players, he seems mindful of this, and reminds the reader why a certain character is re-entering the story.But much history that is readable is just as often trite, superficial, hopelessly popularized, or worse, just plain bad history. This brings me to the second standard (2): Does the author interact with the original sources? Or does he/she merely repeat what others have written on the subject? Pakenham did his research. He engages original sources, actually interviewed Boer War veterans, and even did some interesting detective work to uncover more documents germaine to the topic. Many of his conclusions are probably controversial, but whether one agrees with him or not, one has to grant that he does engage the original sources. One more thing worth mentioning: This work is noticably lacking in the self-concious national self-flagelation that marks historical scholarship in the last decade. There is no need for Pakenham to say, "Imperialism was so awful!", because he lets the historical actions (and actors) speak for themselves. The result is a moral stance that is not pedantically moralistic.
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Well done!,
This review is from: The Boer War (Paperback)
A well done narrative of the Boer War. Pakenham has written a book which resists the easy path of political correctness and dosen't engage in simple minded ideology. He has attempted to show both sides as truthfully as possible. His one very daring act is the effort to show General Buller in a different light - going against decades of historians that have written him off as nothing but an incompetent. Just another example of the idiots that were in charge of the British military in the ninteenth century, as if comptence in the British Army ceased to exsist after Wellington died. It is a bold attempt and one which I believe Pakenham does very well. Pakenham also excells in his effort to show how very difficult it is to maintain control of troops on the battlefield. Garbeled communications, faulty intelligence,monumental egos, morale, unexpected effects of new weapons metting up with outdated tactics - all of these and more are detailed beautifully by Pakenham. I was somewhat suprised that the Boers are shown as not all conquering and often had even more problems then the British. Their troops were wildly undisciplined and were better at partisan warfare or serving in defensive actions. When it came to offensive action against disciplined troops the Boers were actually miserable failures. This is a common trait found in what is now know as "irregular forces". Pakenham looks at both sides and shows that war could have been avoided at almost every step, but personal and national egos and ambition kept getting in the way. Naturally Pakenham draws the inevitable comparisons to World War One and they are very clear. All in all this is a balanced and very readable work. When I first picked it up I was unsure of what I would find. In the past I've found many of the modern African historians to be extremely left wing and lacking in perspective. Pakenham is an exception to the rule and for that I give him five stars. Well done!
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great book, but first read Scramble for Africa,
By
This review is from: The Boer War (Paperback)
Having got this at the same time as Scramble for Africa (same author, which also lightly covered this war) I was not expecting much. I was very suprised to find that the Boer war is very intriguing in itself. I have to admit that I like Packenhams style and find his history books read like Novels. Of course they are history books and there is a lot to learn so take your time. If you haven't read Scramble for Africa then read that first, then the Boer war will give you more detail (within context of the whole African scramble) of how South Africa became what it was and is.The book basically describes that this war should never have happened, and only did so because of the greed of individuals and the incompetence of the British government. Then the war that followed gave a preview of what might happen in a World War (WWI) although few lessons seem to have been learned.
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