Ian Castle lives and works in London in the advertising industry and as a consultant to English Heritage's Special Events Unit. He is involved in a number of historical groups, serving on the Council of the Victorian Military Society while taking an active part in the running of the Society's Zulu War Study Group. As a founder member of the Napoleonic Association, Ian has also indulged his interest in the Austrian Army of that period and is still very involved in the Association's activities across Europe. He is also a member of the recently formed Battlefields Trust.

The lure of the world's great battlefields has led Ian to the sites of major conflicts in England, Scotland, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and South Africa, but it is to the last of these that he has been drawn back on numerous occasions. A fascination for the history of South Africa, born from an early exposure to the classic film Zulu, has been developed through research, writing and many weeks just wandering the rolling green hills of Zululand, into a passion for the story of the soldiers and warriors who crossed rifle and assegai in one of the most enthralling campaigns of the Victorian period. Together with his co-author, he now organises regular tours to the battlefields of Zululand which in turn have provided the basis for this publication. This is Ian's second joint work devoted to the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879.

Ian Knight was born in Sussex in 1956, and attributes his over-riding fascination for Zulu history and culture to a trip to see the feature film Zulu at the age of seven. After several years as a free-lance writer specialising in military history, he returned to full-time education to study for a BA Degree in Afro-Carribean Studies at the University of Kent, Canterbury. Since then he has written a number of titles including The Zulu War: Twilight Of A Warrior Nation (with Ian Castle).

He is the author of a pictorial history of the 1879 Anglo- Zulu War, Brave Men's blood, a full-length study of the battles of Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift, Zulu, and Warrior Chiefs of Southern Africa, a collection of four biographies of 19th century black leaders, including King Shaka. He has edited an anthology of British eyewitness accounts of the War, By the Orders of the Great White Queen!, and has contributed introductions to several reprinted classics of the literature of the period. He is a founder member and former Editor of the Victorian Military Society, and has contributed research for two television documentaries on the subject. He has travelled widely in Zululand, and organises regular tours of the historic sites with co-author Ian Castle.

Ian Castle and ian Knight co-authored the book: The Zulu War: Then and Now.

Book Review (CC#4)

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