Billy the Kid

Publisher Comments: From the Booker Prize-winning author of The English Patient comes a visionary novel, a virtuoso synthesis of storytelling, history, and myth, about William Bonney, a.k.a. "Billy the Kid, " a bloodthirsty ogre and outlaw saint. "Ondaatje's language is clean and energetic, with the pop of bullets."--Annie Dillard.

Achilles

This retelling of the epic tale of Achilles recreates Homer's fated hero. The story moves from classical myth to the writings of John Keats to become a meditation on the nature of identity and shared experience.

The Shield of Achilles

This work sets out to reinterpret the history of the 20th century as a long war in which conditions of outright military confrontation or of frantic "cold" competition lasted from the outbreak of World War I until the collapse of the Soviet Union. He goes on to argue that this long experience of war has brought about a fundamental change in the constitutional basis of states, and explores this idea through the notion of the "market state". By clarifying the relationship between constitutional settlements and military power, and by drawing on his firsthand experience in the heart of superpower planning, Bobbitt reveals a new way of understanding the past - and an awesome glimpse of the future.

ANGLO-ZULU WAR
BATTLEFIELDS

South African born and bred, David Rattray¹s name is today synonymous with the Anglo-Zulu War. Now for the first time, his encyclopaedic knowledge is available to the reading public. With its magnificent colour artwork, including superb paintings, detailed maps and lively and informative text, this book will be greatly welcomed by both readers at home and visitors to the sites themselves.

Description: The Zulu handed the British one of the biggest disasters in their colonial history. Ignoring orders to the contrary, Viscount Chelmsford led his troops into Zululand in 1879, establishing a camp at Islandlwana.
But, while Chelmsford and about half his men were away trying to intercept a Zulu force, the camp was hit by a surprise attack. When the Viscount returned the next day, the area was strewn with bodies: of the 1600 troops, all but 55 Europeans and 300 natives had been killed.
Armed with new information from recent excavation of the battle site, and important never-before-published documents, Adrian Greaves challenges all previous interpretations of the attack that proved once and for all that the British army was not invincible.

The Epic of Isandlwana and the Cover-Up

Ron Lock and Peter Quantrill

Southern Africa 1878. The armies of Queen Victoria's empire, having fought the 9th Frontier War, had finally subjugated the amaXhosa people of the Eastern Cape; a year earlier Britain had annexed the Boer republic of the Transvaal.
The colonial bureaucrats now believed the time was ripe to confederate the various British territories of southern Africa into an imperial dominion – but one obstacle remained: the land adjacent to the northern boundary of their enterprise was the realm of Cetshwayo, King of the Zulu nation, and his army of 40,000 warriors – warriors who were shortly to be described as 'celibate, man slaying gladiators.' Cetshwayo too would need to be subjugated.
To this end a British army, equipped with the most modern weaponry, invaded Zululand on 11 January 1879. It was commanded by Lieutenant-General Lord Chelmsford who, like many in his army, was grossly and dangerously overconfident of victory. On the eve of invasion he was to write: 'I intend to show the Zulu how inferior they are to us in fighting power.' Yet, within days, the main British column, 5,000 strong, had been outgeneraled, outwitted and outfought at the Battle of Isandlwana: a battle of epic consequences that would go down in history as one of the worst defeats ever inflicted on the British Army.
Amongst the Zulu it would be remembered as a renowned victory and a momentous occasion in the history of the Zulu nation.

Zulu Victory describes in fascinating detail the men, and the conditions under which they served, of Chelmsford's army: the red coats, white colonials and black conscripts; equal detail is given to the warriors and the disciplined regiments of King Cetshwayo.

Using source material gathered from repositories as diverse as the Brenthurst Library, Johannesburg; the Royal Archives, Windsor, and oral history recorded from the present day community residing at Isandlwana, the story proceeds in gripping detail and at a spanking pace to the final savage climax of the battle. But the tale does not end there: a head was required on which to place the blame for the British disaster, and the living conveniently found a scapegoat amongst the dead. In the scurry of the cover-up that followed, the credibility of high ranking officers was questioned, culminating in the ruthless interrogation by the army Commander-in-Chief at Horse Guards of Lord Chelmsford himself. For the first time this intriguing aspect of the Anglo-Zulu War is revealed in detail.

Zulu Victory carries a moving foreword by Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, MP, Traditional Prime Minister to the Zulu nation and Minister of Home Affairs to the Republic of South Africa.

Ron Lock (author of Blood on the Painted Mountain) and Peter Quantrill spent over three years researching and travelling in the footsteps of both armies. They visited the battlefield and surrounding area, covering hundreds of square miles, and interviewed the current inhabitants of this famous Zulu battleground.

During much of the nineteenth century, the history of the Zulu kingdom was characterized by conflict. Many of the famous battles of Zulu history - Blood River, Isandlwana, Rorke's Drift - have passed into international folklore, but the Zulu who fought them remain curiously faceless, relegated by their own fierce reputation to the realms of the 'noble savage warrior'.
Great Zulu Commanders looks beyond this misleading image to explore the careers of a number of men who actually led the Zulu forces into battle. It covers a range of Zulu military leaders including : members of the Royal House, like Shaka himself, whose conquests made the Zulu kingdom a mighty power in Southern Africa; King Cetshwayo, who commanded at the Battle of 'Ndondakasuka in 1856 and guided the anti-British strategy in 1879; Cetshwayo's son, Dinuzulu, the last Zulu king to lead his men into battle in person; men of more humble origin, like Chief Bambatha, who led the last resistance to colonial rule in 1906; Prince Dubalamanzi, whose role as the Zulu commander at Rorke's Drift ensured him a lasting reputation among his enemies; Mbilini waMswati, not a Zulu at all but a Swazi, who nevertheless proved the most daring guerrilla fighter to emerge from the war against the British; Zibhebhu kaMaphitha, arguably the most dynamicZulu leader in 1879, who turned against the Royal House after the Anglo-Zulu War and defeated the King's armies in a series of brilliant and bitter battles in the 1880's

The battle of Isandlwana fought on 22 January 1879 was the greatest defeat suffered by the British Army during the Victorian era. A Zulu army of 24,000 warriors had moved undetected to within striking distance of the British camp in the shadow of Isandlwana Mountain.
From the start the 1,700 defenders underestimated the danger descending upon them. They were swept aside with horrifying speed and the final stage of the battle consisted of desperate hand-to-hand fighting amid the British camp. Over 1,300 men were killed; scarcely 60 Europeans survived. This books draws on the latest archaeological and historical research to provide a completely new interpretation of the course of the battle.