The Boer War by Pakenham, Thomas - 1997

London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1997. first edition. Hardcover. Fine, clean, tight copy in near fine dust jacket with very light edge and corner wear; no tears; board are clean; pages are clean, crisp, bright and free of marks and creases; edges of pages are clean; binding is tight and square; a like new copy in a gently used DJ./near fine. Large octavo in brown cloth with gilt titles to spine in tan-brown pictorial dust jacket; 659 pp., [32] pages of b&w illus.; 25 cm. In English. || Out of print. "Thomas Pakenham has written the first full-scale documentary history of the war to be attempted since 1910. His narrative is based on first-hand and largely unpublished sources. He has combed the original British documents in teh Public Record Office and the material in South African archives. He has traced the private papers of most of the protagonists. He found the letters of Sir Redvers Suller - the British Commander-in-Chief in 1899 - letters which had remained hidder under the billiard table at Buller's house in Devon. He has unearthed new material from teh trunk-loads of Lord Robert's papers, discovered a massive secret journal of the war compiled by the War Office Intelligence Department, and found the private letters from teh War Minister, Lord Lansdowne and other members of the Cabinet... He writes movingly about the plight of the 100,000 black Africans who served both armies. And he explains the final political victory of the Boers - how they lost the war but won the peace - with far-reaching consequences for Europe and South Africa." - DJ flaps.