'Warrior Chiefs of Southern Africa', by Ian Knight, published by Firebird Books, ISBN 1-85314-106-2, price 917.95.

Firebird's 'Heroes and Warriors' series has been a bit quite of late, but has struck off in a new direction with this study of four black leaders southern Africa in the nineteenth century. All were either nation-builders or resisters to Colonialism, and between them their stories encapsulate something of the black experience in South Africa during the period of white expansionism. The best known of them, Shaka kaSenzangakhona, established the Zulu kingdom largely through conquest in the 1820s; King Moshoeshoe also forged a kingdom, the BaSotho, through rather more peaceful means, though he, too, was eventually forced into conflict with both the Boers and the British. Maqoma of the Xhosa was a charismatic leader of his people through a series of wars on the Cape Frontier, whilst Mzilikazi kaMashobane broke away from Shaka's kingdom to form the Ndebele (Matabele) kingdom in the interior. Much of this history remains largely unknown outside South Africa - particularly the events on the Cape Frontier, which were every bit as dramatic as the more familiar Zulu history - and this book provides a concise introduction to it, and is wel [- illustrated, both with photographs and line drawings of warrior costume and military uniform.

Reviews

Introduction
Fearful Hard Times: The Siege and Relief of Eshowe 1879
Lord Chelmsford's Zululand Campaign 1878-1879
But Burdens Shouldered; Anglo-Zulu War Graves and Memorials in the United Kingdom
Deeds of Valour: A Victorian Military And Naval Trilogy
Warrior Chiefs of Southern Africa
Fuzzy Wuzzy; The Campaigns in the Eastern Sudan, 1884-85
Butler; A Scapegoat?
Steam, Steel and Shellfire; The Steam Warship 1815-1905
Victorian Military Campaigns
British Campaign Medals; Waterloo To The Gulf
Guns of the British Empire; Firearms of the British Soldier, 1837-1987
Reflections From The Bridge; The Victorian Sapper in Photographs
Osprey Round - Up: Colonial Titles
Pony Wars Round-Up

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