The Boer war

Dutch historian Martin Bossenbroek won the National Dutch History Prize 2013 for this new chronicle of the war that shaped South Africa and the book was also shortlisted for the 2013 AKO Literature Prize, both preeminent Dutch literary prizes. This English paperback edition follows the Afrikaans paperback, published in October 2014, and will cement the critical acclaim already received by Mr Bossenbroek and offer the South African reader the chance to savour his storytelling powers. The (Anglo) Boer war (1899-1902) has been labelled many things. The originator of apartheid. An appetiser for the First and Second World Wars. The first media war (with the first instance of embedded journalists). It helped create the nation-state South Africa, and remains the cause of fiery debate more than a hundred years after its end. In the Boer war, Martin Bossenbroek gives the reader the full story with an in-depth insight and detail previously unmatched. Bossenbroek follows three colourful main characters: the Dutch lawyer, South African Republic state attorney, state secretary and eventual European envoy Willem Leyds; the soon-to-be-immortalised British war-reporter Winston Churchill; and the Boer commander and one-day South African politician Deneys Reitz. Mr Bossenbroek's riveting new account of the war is a must-read for all South African history buffs, for all who loved Thomas Pakenham's classic bestseller.