Rhodes the Race for Africa [Hardcover]

Antony Thomas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 3, 1996

Having been sent to southern Africa as a sickly 18-year-old in 1871, by the age of 30 Cecil Rhodes was the wealthiest man in the western world. Within a further ten years a country almost the size of Europe was named in his honour - Rhodesia. This biography presents Rhodes as a man consumed by ambition, blessed with charisma, tortured by love, and threatened at the pinnacle of his power by an influential female politician, Princess Catherine Radziwill. It is a story of diamonds and gold, of a lust for power that started wars and destroyed nations, of a priceless empire carved in the image of an extraordinary man.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Anthony Thomas, a South African exiled in 1977 after he made an anti-apartheid documentary, approached English empire builder Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) with just the right attitude. Thomas strongly criticized the racially unjust and politically corrupt methods by which Rhodes built the white-dominated states of Southern Africa, but he was also fascinated by the forceful personality that enabled Rhodes to charm, cajole, and finagle his way into wealth and power. Vigorous prose and a propulsive story line do justice to Rhodes's action-packed life, which is also the subject of a Masterpiece Theatre dramatization by Thomas. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Thomas, a native South African best known as a producer, has also written the six-part Masterpiece Theater series this biography is based on. He takes an evenhanded look at South African politician Rhodes (1853-1902), presenting his charm and intellect but not whitewashing how he used them. Thomas resists the temptation to psychoanalyze Rhodes, briefly discussing such items as Rhodes's sexual orientation and family relationships without dwelling on them. He uses and cites primary sources where possible and mentions where the lack of sources leaves a gap in our understanding of Rhodes; he offers theories as to what might have happened without attempting to prove any of them. The reader is left with an admiration for Rhodes's abilities and a repugnance for the apartheid system he helped create. For public and academic libraries.?Julie Still, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: London Bridge; illustrated edition edition (October 3, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0563387424
• ISBN-13: 978-0563387428
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,081,039 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good survey on Rhodes's life, November 25, 1999

By 

E. Eggen "eeggen" (Pensacola, FL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rhodes: The Race for Africa (Hardcover)

Antony Thomas does a very good job of presenting the life events a notable personage, while doing justice to the views of both Rhodes's many apologists and many critics. Rhodes thought his name would live on through his accomplishments for a thousand years, yet in less than a century, most of his work has been undone. Southern Rhodesia is now Zimbabwe and Northern Rhodesia is now Zambia.

I found the most interesting part of the book to be the description of the development and consolidation of the diamond fields at Kimberley. Oddly, the De Beers name which is now synonomous with diamonds around the world came from the name of a farm bought by Rhodes from the De Beers brothers early in the diamond rush. Other than this land sale, the brothers apparently had no role in the industry that made their name famous.

Much of the book deals with the ventures of the British South Africa Chartered Company, including the conquest of Southern Rhodesia (Matabeleland and Mashonaland), and the ill-starred Jemison Raid. The tales of economic and political intrigue, both in Britain and in Africa, are first rate.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Story!, December 19, 2001

By 

Michael Gerace (Worcester, MA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Rhodes: The Race for Africa (Hardcover)

This book is a great read for many reasons. On the one hand, it is well written and well argued. Thomas states his judgement on Rhodes in the beginning, which is a negative one, but then weighs what can and cannot be said about the man based on available evidence. He does not make sweeping statements of any kind. He also measures what past biographers have said against the evidence.

On the other hand, the story itself is fascinating. Thomas delivers a convincing portrait of Rhodes, one that punctures the heroic image of the "Colossus of Africa" while still revealing the clever and opportunistic nature of the man. We learn that Rhodes was a sickly child, whose frailty drove him to Africa when he was a teenager. Personal frailty lasted his whole life--and killed him in 1902. Rhodes was not much of a student, though he was driven to go to Oxford to acquire the right credentials. Rhodes had greater ambitions than amassing wealth alone, but we are led to wonder how committed an imperialist and an English chauvinist he was, given his opportunism. Thomas also presents an engaging description of the people around Rhodes. One of the more interesting is that of Barney Barnato, a British Jew who came to South Africa and amassed a larger fortune than Rhodes ever did and who appeared to be a better businessman than Rhodes as well.

The larger story of South Africa is also integrated into the tale. The diamond and gold rushes are described with great detail, including the largely tragic conflicts with native Africans. There is also much detail about the conflicts between the English and Boers, and even the role of Great Power interests (mostly British).

A general sense of adventure and opportunity about South Africa seems to exude from the story throughout. One of the most interesting examples in the book is the story of the relations between white prospectors--including Rhodes and his colleagues--and the native chief Lobengula, whole ruled in the north over the Matabeleland. The description of the massive and fearsome Lobengula, his treasures, his soldiers, his brutality and his ultimate defeat and suicide offer some of the most gripping narrative in the book.

There are not that many weaknesses to the book. A minor one might be that the book could benefit from more maps. There are 2 maps of southern Africa in the beginning of the book, but a few more maps throughout the book detailing the places where key events occurred would have been helpful.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid study of moral ambiguity, May 24, 2003

By 

chefdevergue (Spokane, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Rhodes: The Race for Africa (Hardcover)

Antony Thomas states up front that he is certainly no fan of Cecil Rhodes, and from that statement, the reader might expect to be treated to a real chop job. Instead, one gets a remarkably even-handed treatment of Rhodes. It would be easy simply to characterize Rhodes as evil, but to Thomas' credit, he does not take the easy way out. He is more than prepared to exam what can be best described as Rhodes' moral ambiguity.

I would not call Rhodes amoral in the strictist sense. He knew well enough when he was doing wrong to want to conceal his activities. Nor would I call him a ruthless pragmatist. His devotion to his friends was quite real, and in the case of Neville Pickering's death, Rhodes' all-consuming grief ultimately kept him from purchasing land that he knew was rich in gold. His personal feelings kept him from making a second, utterly massive, fortune in gold. That is hardly the action of pragmatist.

Trying to figure out what made Rhodes tick becomes trickier the more one examines his deeds. Even Thomas is vexed at times at how easily Rhodes moves from one alliance to another, and completely reverses his stands on issues such as native rights. By the time of his death, Rhodes was lionized throughout the British Empire as being in the vanguard of imperialists, but Thomas shows that for most of his career, he was strictly pursuing his own economic and political interests, and did not cloak himself in the gard of British Imperialism until it was absolutely necessary.

Thomas does not only focus on Rhodes. He demonstrates that most of the men that Rhodes dealt with could be, at times, just as morally ambiguous as he. Rhodes knew well that every man has his price, and demonstrated it again and again. Men in positions of power were irreconcilably opposed to Rhodes & his plans, at least until Rhodes made the right offer. The Victorians would had one believe that they were paragons of virtue and rectitude, but reading of Rhodes' dealings with them makes such a claim hardly believable.

At the end of his life, Rhodes began to appreciate that a man's legacy would not be measured in the wealth that he amassed or in the deals that he made. For Rhodes, that realization came too late. Most of his accomplishments are now hardly remembered, and the man himself is remembered now more with scorn and revulsion that awe and respect. Yet Rhodes was a remarkable man. Thomas makes the distinction between being a remarkable man and a great man, and in this finds the true tragedy of Rhodes' life: he had the talents to be a truly great man for all ages, but instead used these talents strictly to serve his own interests.

The book is quite easy to read, and is well-organized. To Thomas' credit, he does not report all the stories about Rhodes as gospel, and if the historical record is unclear on certain matters, he will say so. He also examines the conclusions made by other scholars on certain subjects and deals with this quite competently. I was pleasantly suprised, since he is not a historian by profession. I do note with interest that some events (such as the famous story of Rhodes dumping loads of diamonds into a bucket, just after Barney Barnato has purchased them) are reported by Thomas in the book as being stories which may or may not be true and cannot be verified by the historical record, but are presented in the "Masterpiece Theatre" production as being true. It is a good indication that in the book at least, Thomas is trying his best to be a responsible scholar.