Jan Christian Smuts: The Conscience of a South African by Kenneth Ingham ISBN 13: 9780868501277

(Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 1986) 0868501271. 8vo; original dark brown boards, lettered in white on spine; laminated pictorial dustwrapper; pp. xii + 284, incl. index; photographs. Dustwrapper slightly rubbed, and sunned on spine panel; some foxing to edges and endpapers. Good condition. "An academic - even a visionary - by nature, he felt impelled to demonstrate that he was a man of action. Cosmopolitan in his political awareness, he constantly sought refuge in South Africa. A scientific humanist by choice, he was a Christian by conviction. This book examines how Smuts struggled with these dilemmas. It looks at his involvement in moves to unite the Boers and British of South Africa, to strenghten the links which bound together the member-states of the old British Commonwealth, to build a worldwide version of that Commonwealth by means of a League of Nations organization. This was the realm of ideas in which Smuts was most successful, as consultant to Louis Botha at home, to Lloyd George and… Read More